The old stallion and the sky

Meals-on-wheels was a very important institution in Equestria with a very good reputation. It was founded decades ago by Princess Celestia herself, to help the elder and handicapped ponies without family or other ponies to help them.

The manager of the Meals-on-wheels facility in Ponyville was Cosy Cookie. She was a formal member of the Wonderbolts and also known as Thunderblade, a fearless daredevil with a heart of gold. She retired and made room for a new generation of flying aces and wanted to help the last generation. Cookie was very satisfied with her work here, there were a lot of ponies who wanted to help, they had always enough food and skilled ponies to prepare that food. The only thing that was lacking was volunteers.
It was easy to bring food to these ponies, Cosy Cookie herself could manage to bring food to a hundred households on her lists in one day, but the thought of just banging a door at push food in someone’s muzzle was disgusting to her. No! Helping ponies was more than just bringing a meal!
Cozy Cookie was spending a lot of time with the ponies on her list, talking to them, helping in the household, doing the small things they couldn’t do anymore. Somehow it brought her more satisfaction than all the parades she had during her time as an active Wonderbolt.

Today Cookie had a new volunteer, but she wasn’t sure if it would be right to take her. She looked at the small orange Pegasus girl with the short wings and violet mane and seemed very skeptical.

“Aren’t you a bit small for a Volunteer?” she asked with one raised brow.

“I am not small!” Scootaloo answered with distended cheeks “I am totally normal for my age!” Her small wings were moving like a humming-bird and she made a little jump. Was she mad? But she looked so cute! “Here look!” The orange filly turned around and showed her flank “I have a cutie mark!” It was shaped like a shield with lightning on it “I am all grown up!” She made another small jump.

“Yeah, right” Cookie spoke calmly “But how old are you?”

“I am 16!”

“Really?”

“I mean, I am nearly 16?” Said Scootaloo and started to sweat lightly. Cookie still had this very serious look in her eyes, she did not believe her! Oh no! The whole plan started to fall “I mean 14?” Cookie just narrowed her brows, she said nothing, but Scoots could feel how she was judging her “Okay, I am twelve” she made a small break “I mean ten.” But Cookie just cleared her throat, she had to say nothing, but the Filly was feeling the heavyweight of decades of a mare that shaped young pegasi like her into full-fledged Wonderbotls “OKAY!” scoots yelled in desperate “I am nine and a half.”

“Good, that’s something I believed… why does a nine years old filly want to work as a volunteer for Meals-on-wheels? You can’t even pull the wagon.” Cookie was really curious what was driving a young filly to want such a thing.

“Ah! Well, that’s easy I” Scootaloo wanted to tell her about how she wanted to help all these poor lonely ponies because she had this deep urge to help others, but Cookie already had this serious look again “I mean I...” Scoots had to sigh, her only hope was, to tell the truth, and get through with it “I just found out that I have a grandfather called Cloud Jumper, but neither my aunties nor my parents wanted to tell me anything about him! But Aunt Holiday slipped that he got food from here! That means you have to know where to find him!”

Cozy Cookie gasped when she heard that name, Cloud Jumper. “You are right, he is on our list. I want to be honest with you, there are a lot of people I love to bring food, like the blind Mrs. Bees, who plays the most beautiful music on her piano, or Mr. Crumble who can tell you the most fun stories about his formal life in Manehattan.” She spoke and made a little break to think about some of her favorite customers, she had to smile but her smile faded when she thought about Cloud Jumper “But your grandfather is a totally different thing, he is the most grumpy, rude and stinky stallion I have ever meet! He never says thank you and when he says something it is only to offend us. Your parents did right not to tell you about him.”

“But Ma’am,” said Scootaloo and used her big innocent filly eyes on her, maybe she is not a teenager, but she is a cute little filly and knows how to use her resources “pleeeease.” She let her eyes water a bit and moved her lower lip a bit forward. “I never have met the parents of my father and I don’t have much family left because my parents are traveling through the whole world and my aunties have not much time for me. I just want to have a family.” Scooterloo did her best to look super sad. But there was no reason to be sad, Scootaloo had a lot of friends and was loved by her aunties and her parents.

Maybe Cosy Cookie saw something beyond that or maybe her Iron hard drill powers have gotten weaker since she retired? Anyway, Scootaloo made her say “Okay, okay, what is the worst that can happen?”