Author's Note
A massive thank you and a huge shoutout to AnibarutheCat for providing the cover art. Check out their other work here: https://inkbunny.net/AnibarutheCat
Scoot Along, Scootaloo
It was a glorious Hearth’s Warming night; the grounds were snow-covered and white, the sky was alight with the full moon and the stars beyond were sparkling, and the outside air was permeated with a chilly breeze. A pegasus couple were sitting inside of their warm, cosy, and bright cottage ornate with hanging festivity decorations. They had eaten their festive dinner and were huddled together on the sofa drinking champagne from their tall glasses. They laughed and joked as they reminisced their youths through a book of memories, remembering their childhood Hearth’s Warmings with their parents. It was on this beautiful night that the couple conceived their firstborn, under the radiant glow of the night lights.
They were a happy couple and the news was exciting, if not a little scary at first since both pegusi were still young themselves. They knew they had to devote themselves to see this through and promised they would be there for each other through the hardships of childbearing and upbringing. The newly pronounced father was hoping for a colt, one he could play catch with and teach to fish. The mother hoped for a filly, one she could buy dresses for and enjoy many shopping trips with. Regardless of gender, they unanimously decided on the same unisex name: Scooter, a name meaning playfully hyperactive.
Winter passed into spring, which passed into summer. Every month seemed more arduous than the last as the little foal grew timely inside the mare. They tried everything to make the pain less agonising, most of which consisted of taking specific medical tablets and extensive yoga practices to help with the physical aches. But what of the will; the headaches, the anxiety, the thoughts? For that, they distracted themselves by buying new furniture for the baby, and new toys, and clothes. An idea by the father was to upturn, repaint and redecorate the hobby room and make it all the child’s own. A heavy blow to his writing career but he understood that family came first, and each distraction was good reminder of the cause they were doing it for.
All throughout the pregnancy, they made many regular trips to the hospital to ensure the foetus was healthy, which all tests showed it was to their relief. They were offered a sex reveal a couple of times but refused them all stating that gender meant little to them, that they would love it for what it is and will become. Deep down, however, each parent wished for their own gendered child.
In the later months, the mother craved watermelon; a common desire among pregnant pegusi. She would receive them in odd fluctuations, and frequently she would run them dry which meant many trips to the store for more, regardless of time or weather. And when she ate too much, she would vomit it all back up; most of the time in the bathroom but often in a bucket and the rare chance over the bedsheets in the middle of the night. Still the stallion stuck by his wife and ran every errand and cleaned every mess to ensure the good health of both her and his offspring.
Then came that fateful moment. Her frustrations of carrying a child were almost over. After a long and painful cramp in her abdomen region, she was rushed to the hospital and was housed in a maternity ward with husband by her side, and for many days at that. Hours upon hours passed and on the last day she was encouraged to relax and push in intervals by a specific midwife she had taken a liking to. With the encouragement of her husband and many deafening shouts and excruciating screams later, a foal was given a chance at life.
“It’s a girl!” the midwife cried. The healthy baby foal cried her soul out until she was wrapped in a blanket the parents had brought from home, which was sky blue and dotted with clouds. The father congratulated his partner on her achievement and they thanked each other for the beautiful gift they received. Both were ecstatic and full of joy, and the mare was relieved among all things.
The mother was offered to hold her baby, which she accepted without a second thought. She held her child in her arms and spoke softly to her, calling her by her name, Scooter, and welcoming her to the play of life. She told her how wonderful her future is going to be and that she would be loved every day until the very end. The father whispered to her also, saying she would grow up into a fine mare and enjoy every marvellous aspect life had to offer. They both kissed Scooter gently on the head and cuddled with her.
The midwife stepped outside for a moment and returned soon after with a doctor. The parents looked onwards with worry in their eyes. The doctor told them not to fret and that he needed to perform some general tests to ensure the foal was as healthy as it seemed. The newly pronounced parents reluctantly agreed for the betterment of their daughter and she was taken out of her arms and carefully removed from the ward. The father consoled the mother and ensured her that their daughter was in good care.
Tens of minutes passed, and the doctor finally returned. The mother saw the dreadful look imprinted on his face and her expression froze in a state of alarm. Her heart bellowed in fear of the news about to be shared. The doctor apologised for the statement he was about to give them, which made the mother burst into tears before they were told anything. The father comforted his partner, but he too was unnerved by the forthcoming news. The doctor told them their daughter was fine but had a slight malfunction while in the womb. After asking what the lasting effects were, the doctor responded with the mother and father’s worst fear; their daughter was pronounced handicapped. When asked to elaborate, the answer was grave and melancholy. “Her wings have not been properly developed,” the doctor said. “She may not be able to use them in the early years of her life.”
This news made the mother wail and sob in mental agony and tears were shed once more. Through her hiccups and gasps she blamed herself for not taking better care of herself during her pregnancy. The doctor consoled her, along with the husband, telling them it was not her fault and that there was nothing anyone could do to prevent it. He also stated that they would be performing independent tests in the coming days to understand what caused this malfunction in the hopes that it could be avoided in the future. He reassured them that they could leave with their daughter as a family as soon as the mother was stable enough to walk.
It took a few days for the mare to regain her ability to walk. She would be helped in and out of her bed and guided up and along the side by the midwife. During which, Scooter was held by Daddy and they watched Mummy obtain her strength together. Whenever she was set back in bed, she held her daughter close and spoke softly to her.
The return home was a hopeful thought and the familiar sight of their detached cottage cheered them up. Their long dramatic weeks in the hospital had ended. They welcomed their new-born daughter into their home and into their lives. Even the house itself seemed to welcome the newcomer with open arms as it creaked and grew brighter and warmer.
Many years passed and the filly grew healthy, like a normal pegasus filly should. She was raised in a small midwestern town by her charming and eccentric loving parents. Despite her inability to function her wings properly, she was praised as the perfect little filly by her parents. She was happy and carefree with a bit of extra energy coursing through her veins. She laughed when tickled, cried when hurt and fell right asleep when set in her bed with the company of her mother’s soft and gentle voice humming a lullaby.
But the parent’s concern grew with each passing day about the dysfunction in her wings. Her wings grew slower and were smaller than those of normal pegusi her age. They would simply not obey her; sometimes they would extend dramatically, which hurt the poor filly, and other times they would stay tightly folded, and flapping them was out of the question. Whenever she attempted to fly with her father or friends, she had a painful reminder that she could not. And when she fell upon the ground, they would be standing by to help her back up.
Her early years would find her waking up during the night crying in agony, and her parents could do nothing but comfort her until the pain subsided. Her parents tried all they could to help encourage her to control them but to no avail. They tried to help by coming up with new ideas daily to help with their functionality, from strapping small wooden planks under each wing which were uncomfortable, to parental demonstrations which she struggled to maintain concentration towards, to large blue pills which she was reluctant to swallow. They even had a word with her schoolteacher to keep an extra watchful eye on her. But nothing seemed to help, and the parents were running out of ideas, and their willpower was beginning to dwindle.
One cloudy afternoon, before Scooter returned home from preschool, mother and father were sat at the dining room table discussing their daughter’s future between mugs of coffee. Their dark, red-rimmed eyes told stories of countless sleepless nights and many stressful days. They had never seen themselves this bad and it shocked their nerves.
They discussed their daughter, that she was not like other pegasus fillies. They discussed their attempts at helping her gain functionality in her wings. They discussed the effort they had been through leaving them with no positive results and left feeling enervated. They discussed their daughter’s further wellbeing as well as their own. They discussed the outlooks of their daughter’s unfavourable future and the hardships that would no doubt come with it, and tears were shed over it.
In the last couple of months, a feeling began flowing over them like waves upon the sand. It was minor at first, nothing more than a ripple, but slowly and eventually it grew until it became a tsunami that washed away all other emotions. This feeling was of both regret and disappointment. This feeling was of shame in both themselves and their daughter, and it lingered to the point where they were desperately grasping for air. Though they did not share these feelings with each other, the feelings were deep, and they were drowning in them.
After a long and thoughtful silence, a thought sprung to the stallion’s head; a gloomy and unpleasant, yet hopeful thought. He was hesitant to discuss this thought with his wife, and she was understandably disturbed and offended by it. After a long-winded explanation, however, her reluctance became less discernible and acceptance became more perceptible as the understanding of the positives of his explanations outweighed the negatives. “We can’t keep up this charade anymore,” the stallion told his wife. “I don’t see what other choice we have. A better life is worth this sacrifice.”
It was not long before Scooter returned home from her long and tedious day at school. She greeted her parents the same way she always did; with a smile and a hug. They asked her to sit down at the table with them before she started her homework. Their bleak faces forced a smile and they asked if she wanted to go to the playground instead of doing her homework. Scooter’s grin widened as she excitedly accepted their invitation.
They rarely took trips to the playground in fear of further damaging her wings. In the rare occasions they did go they would take extra precautions to ensure her safety, but sometimes it was not enough. They would glance away from her for only a second to find she had tumbled from the slide and landed awkwardly on a wing, or she would be having so much fun that she forgot that extending her wings hurt her. But each time they asked if she wanted to take a trip to the park, she would be filled with excitement and was always raring to go.
The playground was not a long walk away and was somewhat close to her school, but what confused Scooter was the direction they were heading in; they were walking in the opposite direction to where the park was situated. When asked what was going on, her father answered with, “We’ve found a bigger playground. You’ll find lots of new things to play on.” Scooter was filled with both excitement and confusion at the same time. She liked the idea of a bigger playground and more frames to climb upon, but she also liked her old playground because she knew most of the fillies and colts who played there and had already made friends with them.
The new playground was miles out of the way. There were many twists and turns, dips and rises, and ins and outs as they walked through public parks, over large farmlands and through a small village. The walk was long over an hour, but Scooter did not lose her excitement or energy for even a moment. She rode on her father’s back for the last of the way, and with each step taken her vigour grew more and more, and her excitement doubled when she spotted the climbing frame coming into view from over the slope. Her enthusiasm dropped a little when she realised the playground was no larger than her old one. In fact, she was convinced that it was smaller.
But that did not stop her from getting excited at the sight of something new and different. There was a swing-set, a sliding frame, a roundabout, and see-saws, and even a sandbox. Her old playground did not have a sandbox and she was excited to dig in it.
She became giddy upon seeing the park coming into sight and began prancing on her father’s back in excitement. His tired and aching bones could not take her pounding and he lifted her off and placed her on the ground. Before she could run off towards the playground to play, Mummy pulled her off the main footpath and sat her on a wooden bench on the grass. Both Daddy and Mummy knelt in front of her to meet her eye level. They stared at her for a while with red eyes that burned in the light of the grey afternoon. The excitement in Scooter’s eyes were unshifted but was accompanied by a hint of confused curiousness that glistened as she wondered why they would not just let her play.
The mother lamented a sigh before she chokingly said, “Scooter, you know we love you with all our heart, right?” “Yes, Mummy,” She answered with a composed voice filled with excitement. The father said, “And you know we’re proud of you, right?” “Yes, Daddy,” She answered again. The wife said, “And if there was anything we could have done to help you, you know we would, right?” “Yes, Mummy,” She answered once more. The husband said, “And you know that, no matter what happens, you will always be our precious daughter?” “Yes, Daddy,” She answered one last time. Her thoughts were too occupied to focus fully on what they were asking her, and she was too innocent to comprehend their true meaning anyway.
Her impatience started to show as her legs began to kick restlessly. All she wanted to do was to go and have fun in the playground, unbeknownst to her that the wheels of her parent’s plan had been set into motion and were grinding heavily away. Her parents were forcing a smile, but their hearts hung severely low and were filled with nothing but remorse.
They both leaned in and embraced their daughter tightly as they tried to sustain their tears. They kissed her and nuzzled her cheeks and patted her back and stroked her mane. They held their embrace for an unusually lengthy amount of time, something that felt strange and uncomfortable to Scooter, knowing the fact that this may very well be the last time they see their daughter. “Can I go play now?” She awkwardly asked between the passionate kisses and pats.
They held their hug for a little while longer. They whispered solemnly into her ears, telling her, “We’re sorry,” “We will always love you,” and, “Stay strong out there,” before they let her go. They told her, “You be a good girl, you hear,” and to, “Have fun, okay,” before she raced off into the playground. She told them she would, “See you later,” before making a beeline for the sandbox with a squeal of excitement.
Her parents silently bade her farewell through tear-filled eyes. They turned and staggered back the way they came with their hearts full of misery and self-absorbed pity. The husband consoled his wife by telling her, “Trust me. This is for the best.” The wife responded, “But can we live with what we’ve done?” The husband feared an answer and a foreboding silence began to circle over them like a dark cloud rising from the crypts of misery. Though the mare was accepting of what needed to be done, she felt that there must have been a better solution.
She does not know what it was or why it made itself clear, but something residing on the surface of Scooter’s coat told her to turn around. She saw and watched her parents walking slowly in the direction of the village. Daddy had an arm around Mummy, as if steadying her or helping her to walk. She figured they were heading into the village for a break, perhaps for a coffee or to do some shopping, or to buy her a souvenir; she was from another town after all and rarely stepped out of its borders. With these joyous thoughts in her mind, she returned her excited attention to the playground.
Scooter played for hours in the playground. She met another filly, a unicorn, the same age as her and they played together for the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening. They built castles in the sand, slid down the slide and swung on the swings as happy-go-lucky as acquainted fillies can be. They played pirates in the watchtower, space-ponies on the swings and construction workers in the sandpit, and ate ice-cream together that the unicorn’s eldest sister bought for them both. They only stopped playing when the elder sister called to her sibling to take her home, which she bade Scooter farewell and left retelling the stories of her time spent in the playground.
After another hour of nonstop swinging, sliding, and digging by herself, her energy had depleted, and she became tired. She realised it was getting late and the sky was darkening, and that her parents should be calling for her too. She climbed up the ladders to the slide for one last ride and slid down the steel slope. She landed safely at the bottom and lazily looked over to where her parents should be. But they were not there, nor anywhere that she could see. She figured they must still be shopping and would soon be returning to pick her up and return her home.
She sat idly at the edge of the playground and stared obliviously at the same spot. She stared and waited and waited and stared, every so often glancing from side to side. It would not dawn on her that her parents were now far away from the playground and had no intention of returning.
Still, she waited, for as long as the evening sun began setting, and the playground grew more and more empty as time continued to pass her by. Before long, the playground was completely silent and devoid of life. The sun had shone its fair share for the day and disappeared beyond the horizon, covering the lie of the land in a velvet shadow. The playground quickly grew ominous, desolate, and frigid.
The fear of the realisation that her parents were not coming to pick her up slowly started to creep up on her like a skeletal hoof running up her spine and resting on her head. She began breathing heavily and her heartbeat grew to a rapid pace. Her head and body were becoming light and she felt dizzy.
She stood up, her body shivering from the cold and quaking in fright, and stumbled to where her parents had last spoken to her. She sniffled and tears welled in her eyes before they were forced to leak down her cheeks. In a burst of sudden terror, she tried crying out in anxiety. “Mummy? Daddy?” Her voice fell flat as a whisper in the evening air. Her excitement and enthusiasm had now been replaced with dread and panic and had risen so much in such a short time that it overtook the rest of her senses and she began calling out in a wild panic.
Her shouts and screams echoed loudly. She spun in circles on the spot, shouting and searching frantically for her parents. But the area surrounding her was barren and silent. Not a single soul was around to hear her cries for help.
After many attempts, all of which resulting in failure, she eventually broke down. She shrivelled up on the ground and covered her eyes. She wept and sobbed loudly. She told herself it was all just a bad dream and that she would be woken up soon. She lay there, repeating the words for a few long minutes wishing it would be true. But the longer she wept the further her wishes flew from her.
After all the tears and weeps within her had escaped, she had no other option but to pick herself back up. Her head felt fuzzy and her knees were weak. She slowly staggered back into the playground full of sniffles. She hid herself under the slide and curled into a ball. There she stayed for the remainder of the night and eventually cried herself to sleep, wanting her parents to return her home before the night’s end.
The sky had cleared for the night, and the moon was bright, but it dragged like a pallet of blocks on sandpaper. She struggled to fall asleep as the night was bitter and full of strange noises – the chains on the swings rattling in the wind, the metal slide chiming, and the roundabout squeaking as it rotated on its spindle ever so slightly. Chirping crickets were heard in the near, howling wolves in the far, and everything else in between. It was a scary experience for a filly as young as Scooter, especially when she had no awareness of the area or the creatures within and around it, and every sound that reached her delicate ears were loud and startling.
She did eventually fall asleep, though it was involuntary, passing out from fatigue. Her mind became numb and thoughtless as she fell deeper and deeper into her unconsciousness, until eventually even the sounds of the night were unable to disturb her slumber.
The moon eventually fell, bringing the bitter night to an end, and gave way to the rise of the sun. The day was bright and colourful in contrast to the dark and dreary night. Scooter was woken by the sound of playful screams and laughter. She was too tired to open her eyes, but her senses were active. She thought she had dreamt that dreadful night, and that the sun was shining through the open window in her room which was blinding her, and the laughter was from the neighbouring children enjoying the weekend.
She groaned and rubbed her eyes, wondering what all the noise was about. She lifted her head and banged it on a solid surface that chimed when struck. Driven by shock, she screamed and kicked herself out from underneath the slide. The fillies and colts at the top of the slide looked down at her in confusion. Her expression of surprise and bewilderment disturbed them, and they quickly slid down and carried their playfulness somewhere else until the strange pony left.
Scooter glanced around to find that she had not dreamt that dreadful night and the playground was alive with fillies and colts. Her heart pounded heavily, and her body began to shake uncontrollably, and she was still dazed from being woken up with a start.
She stumbled to her hooves feeling hungry and cold, scared and alone. With her head hung low and a weeping grimace on her face, she left the playground. She sat under a large tree atop a small hill overwatching the playground. She searched for any sign of her parents, but there were none to be found and they were nowhere to be seen. She was now slowly realising that her parents were not returning, and that she may never see them again.
She allowed reality to take control of her emotions and she cried her heart out into her rough dirty hooves. She was too young and too naïve to understand what she was feeling. This feeling, a feeling of abandonment and desertion, was something she never thought she would feel let alone experience first-hand. It would have destroyed her were she not so strong willed and stably determined. She wept for hours until the sun had hit its highest point in the sky.
While she wept, she asked herself how this could happen to her. Her thoughts led her to menial situations, situations where she had been good for her parents: she always completed her homework on time, she always ate everything on her dinner plate, she always brushed her teeth when she woke up and before she went to sleep. But she became carried away and her thoughts led her astray into farfetched reasonings, reasonings that would not and should not have ended with this result. Sure, she had made her fair share of mistakes, as every filly and colt have in their youths, like spilling the milk at dinner and not falling to sleep when she should and getting into minor scrapes at school, but were they really worth such a severe punishment?
Her parents said they had always loved her, and she in return loved them. Her faith in them was strong. Her respect for them was outmatched. Her friendship towards them was forever.
Now those feelings were shattered and destroyed. Her body was left cold and her mind distraught. Her heart had been shattered and smashed into many tiny pieces. Her soul was drowning in a sea of sorrowful tears.
As she lay there, feeling sorry for herself, a shooting pain shot into her side that dragged forth a tear. The pain was agonising and one she was familiar with all too well. She Looked to her side to find her tiny wing had become erect, as if adding injury to insult. She tried to fold it back, but it refused to do as it was told and stayed upright.
Then she remembered the times she overheard her parents talking about her wings, about how they were dysfunctional and having help to control them. Was that the reasoning behind this? Were her wings the cause for all her parent’s troubles? Was it because of this that she was left alone, heartbroken, and defenceless? Was it because of these that her parents left her forsaken?
It could not be. They always told her they loved her for who she was, not who she was not. They told her they loved her because of her wings; that she was unique because of them. That was a silly thought. But the more she thought about it, the more she convinced herself that was the truth.
She trusted them. She had to. She knew nothing of the wide world at her age. She trusted them to give her an education. She trusted them to teach her understanding and tolerance. She trusted them to help her grow physically and spiritually. She trusted them to give her a life among all things, and they let her down. They threw it all away because of a minor inconvenience. They hurt her. They hurt her more than her wings ever did. They betrayed her.
It was this mindset that left her feeling distraught. She was not angry very often and the few times she was were usually directed at misunderstandings, usually solved through verbal corrections. It was never at her parents, though they did annoy her at times, as she somehow understood that they were doing it for her benefit. This time, however, her anger was entirely pinpointed towards them. She started to tear up, not from the anger or the pain or the sorrow but from a feeling of confusion. She did not know what to feel under the circumstance.
She looked away from her wing and down to the playground. From the vantage point she could see the village she had walked through to get here. She might have been alone, but she was not yet lost. She breathed deeply and psyched herself up with courage and confidence, wiped her eyes dry and her sniffles away, and headed towards the village with the mindset of starting a new life of her own.
As she steadily trudged along the dirt path with hunger in her stomach and aching in her hooves, she took sight of and was distracted by a teenage pegasus flying high above her. She watched in wonder as the pegasus looped, swooped, and performed incredible aerial tricks. The pegasus landed at the side of Scooter with grace and elegance and was stared at with wide inspired eyes.
“That was amazing!” Scooter exclaimed. The pegasus thanked the little filly and flicked her rainbow-coloured mane from her eyes. Scooter burst with awe as she asked if she could be her student, an apprentice of sorts and to help teach her to fly. The pegasus looked at her wings and made a tough comment about them, which Scooter ground her teeth in anger at, but told her to, “Show me what you got. Let me see them flap.”
Scooter explained to the pegasus that she could not control her wings very well and that it was difficult to flap them. She gave a short demonstration and hovered for a second before collapsing in agonising pain. The pegasus laughed light-heartedly and patted Scooter on the head. She told her to, “Keep practicing, kid,” and that, “You don’t become this good overnight,” before flying off, leaving a colourful trail behind.
Taking these words to heart, Scooter followed her trail flapping her little wings as she ran, bearing the insufferable pain they caused.
The trail drove her into the village square before it dissipated and merged into the deep blue sky. She stopped flapping and looked around. Immediately she was greeted with a water fountain of a stone statue atop a stone ball as its centrepiece. After overhearing a conversation between passers-by, she found herself standing in the square of a quaint little village that went by the name of Ponyville.
She backed up into one of the nearby alleyways and looked out from its protection. She stood in the shadows and watched the various residents of Ponyville walk by. There were brothers and sisters, friends and families, parents and children of all ages skipping gleefully in the afternoon sunshine. They seemed happy and carefree with beaming grins across their faces.
Happy and carefree; that was what she wanted to be with her family but was never given the chance. All she wanted was to make her parents proud but now she cannot. She would never forget them – she couldn’t, not after what they had done to her – yet, despite this, she hoped that one day she would meet them again to understand the reasons behind their actions.
She looked to her side and spotted an abandoned scooter poking out of the trash. She dragged it out and a helmet was strapped to its handle. She picked up the helmet and placed it on her head and fastened it. It was a little too big for her, but she would grow into it, and the scooter was a little too big for her to ride. On the scooter’s frame was a faded word with the few preserved letters spelling out a specific word.
“Scootaloo.” She spoke the word which seemed to resonate with her voice. “That has a nice ring to it.”
At that moment, a large sheet of loose paper blew through the alley and slammed into her face. She scrambled to remove it and held it out in front of her. Her eyes blissfully widened as she realised what it was. It was a poster that had escaped from its original owner. On the poster was a photograph of a rainbow-maned pegasus, the same pegasus that she had been talking to only a moment ago. She was poised in a proud salute before a cloudy blue background. It was similar to that of a graduation photograph, and the caption underneath stated, “Rainbow Dash – The Best in Flight Class.”
A wide grin crept across her face and the enthusiasm she had lost came rushing back to her. She hung the poster on the side of the building with some chewed-up gum she found in the trash at each corner. She leant the scooter underneath it and placed the helmet on the handles and stood back and stared inspiringly at them. To anybody else they were mere pieces of junk, but to Scooter they were now the starting point of her grand existence.
Then, as if invited with promise of happiness, a recent memory made itself clear to her. It was of her parents, but not a joyful one. It was what she had witnessed the afternoon before; it was of her parents walking towards the village, towards Ponyville, away from the playground and, most importantly, away from her. She figured they must have made it back home last night and were no longer in town.
She thought her memory would have made her angry or upset. Yet, as the memory started to dissipate, she did not feel anything towards them despite the pain they had inflicted on her. Somehow, staring at the photograph seemed to inspire her to detach herself from them. She could still not forgive them, but they would eventually fade into the deepest depths her youthful subconscious.
“I will become the greatest flyer in the whole of Equestria,” she said quietly but proudly to herself. “I will be known from this day on as Scootaloo, and Rainbow Dash will be my inspiration. Just you wait, you’ll see.”
She faced and stared at the poster for a few moments more before her growling stomach broke her out of her trance. She decided to brave Ponyville and, under her new identity, ventured out to explore her cuisine options, leaving her home-dubbed alley in the shadows.
