Ground Control to Major Scootaloo
The entrance to the throne room was massive, grand, and tall. In other words, it was the exact opposite of everything that Scootaloo was. The little pegasus gulped as they stared up at the massive doors, feeling her heart flutter inside her chest with a greater intensity than her wings could ever produce.
“Okay Scootaloo,” she said to herself. “This is it! You can do this! Just… go inside, and ask Celestia for help!”
She took a deep breath and puffed out her chest. Scootaloo took a deep breath and extended her wings…
...before promptly deflating and melting to the carpet with huge, gasping breaths. “Oh no, what if she hates me? What if she doesn’t want to help me?! What if… what if she sends me to the moon!”
Scootaloo shuddered at the thought.
“I can’t go to the moon! I’m too awesome to get banished to the moon!”
She cowered on the very royal carpet, covering her eyes with her forelegs with a wail.
“Scootaloo! What are you doing?”
“Wha-- Rainbow Dash?!” Scootaloo looked around, searching for signs of her mentor.
“Nope! This is your conscience,” replied the voice that sounded like Rainbow. “And I’m telling you to pony up!”
Scootaloo’s eyes widened. “W-What do you mean?”
Not-Rainbow laughed. “Come on! You really think Celestia is going to send you to the moon? That’s insane! Celestia is awesome, powerful, and probably really nice! You know the things Twilight says about her! So how could someone like that send you to the moon?”
“Huh…” Scootaloo tapped her chin. “Well when you put it like that… yeah, I guess that does seem kind of silly.”
“That’s the spirit!” cheered not-Rainbow. “So what’re you waiting for?”
“Nothing!” cheered Scootaloo as she fully unpeeled herself from the carpet. “I’m ready! Let’s do this!”
With that, she triumphantly turned towards the very royal doors and tugged on the handles.
Her smile wavered when they didn’t budge. “Oh, come on!” She pulled harder, resorting to planting both her rear legs on the surface and tugging with all her might. “Let! Me! In!”
Scootaloo’s hoof then slipped from the handle and she flew into the carpet. “Ow!”
“Ma’am, it’s a push door.”
Scootaloo whipped her head around, realizing that two royal guards were standing at attention behind her. “Oh! Right. Um… how much of that did you…”
“All of it, ma’am,” replied the second guard tonelessly. “All of it.”
Scootaloo blushed and cleared her throat. “Right. Um. Yeah.” She darted through the double doors without looking back as the guards snickered behind her.
As she entered the royal throne room a cool breeze instantly washed over her. She shivered, eyes locking on that great celestial form resting on the golden throne.
“Enter!” called a regal voice.
Scootaloo blinked. “...I already have? Should I… Should I go outside and come in again?”
Celestia looked up at her.
“Oh… um. Okay.” Scootaloo backed out, pulling the door shut behind her. She waited for a few seconds before rapping her small hoof against the door.
“Enter!”
Scootaloo entered the room again, trying to pretend that it was her first time doing so.
Celestia gazed upon her lazily, reclining back in her throne.
“Um… your majesty?” Scootaloo bent a foreleg awkwardly in an unpracticed half-bow.
Celestia blinked indifferently. “Oh, good morning Scootaloo. Have you had a good morning?”
Scootaloo rubbed the back of her neck. “Uh, it’s been okay, this morning my waffles--”
“Good!” Celestia set aside the scroll she was reading and smiled. “That’s great! Really good to hear. What brings you to Canterlot?”
“Oh!” Scootaloo cleared her throat and straightened up. “Well, I was just wondering if you could, uh… help me fly?”
Celestia looked at Scootaloo. Scootaloo looked at Celestia.
“Ah,” Celestia finally said, a smile forming on her face. “I was wondering when I’d be seeing you… chicken.”
Scootaloo blinked. “W-What?”
“It’s quite simple,” Celestia explained, tapping her hooves together. “Do you like bananas?”
“Well… I guess they’re not bad, but what does that have to do with--”
“As I suspected!” Celestia summoned a quill and began scribbling quickly. “According to my notes here…that would make you a chicken that likes bananas.”
Scootaloo tilted her head in confusion. “Well, I--”
“A banana chicken.”
“I guess--”
“Dare I say a chickenana?”
Scootaloo just stared. “Princess Celestia, with all due respect, what in Equestria are you talking about?”
Celestia’s horn flashed and the quill and notepad disappeared. “What about banana cake?”
“N-no,” Scootaloo said, confusion beginning to boil to frustration. “Look, if you’re not going to help--”
“Wait, wait, wait. How can you like bananas but not banana cake?” Celestia asked.
Scootaloo groaned. “Can we just forget about the bananas for a second?”
Celestia ignored her and summoned her notepad again. “Hmm… you know, that sounds like something a chicken would say. Liking bananas but not banana cake. It just doesn’t make any sense, you know?”
“Well, I think--”
“What I think is that you’re lying to me!” Celestia declared, smacking her notebook with a hoof and turning her full attention onto Scootaloo. “Are you lying to me?”
Scootaloo recoiled, fear suddenly shooting through her feathers. “N-no, honest! I just…”
“You know what kind of vile creature tells lies?” Celestia leaned in and whispered: “A chicken. Are you a chicken, Scootaloo?”
Scootaloo shivered. “I… I have small wings, but--”
“So that would make you…”
“A chicken?”
“A banana-loving chicken,” Celestia confirmed.
Scootaloo stuttered, her mind grinding to a halt as it tried to make sense of Celestia’s ramblings. “I mean… yes?”
“Wonderful!” The Princess smiled widely as the notepad disappeared again. “I’m glad we got that settled!”
“Me… too?” Scootaloo replied, more confused now than ever.
Celestia stood, descending her throne. “So, you’re a chicken that likes banana cake. Would you like to eat some banana cake?”
Scootaloo’s stomach growled, betraying her thoughts. “Oh, well if it isn’t a hassle then sure!”
“Wonderful! Because you’re going to eat some banana cake!”
There was a second of silence.
“Yay?”
“ON THE MOON!”
Scootaloo blinked. “Are you… you’re joking right?”
Celestia tapped her chin. “Hmmm… Nah.” Her horn glowed brightly and a hidden trapdoor beneath Scootaloo swung open.
“Woah!”
Scootaloo flapped her wings frantically as she clawed against the sides of the tunnel. “Oof!” She hit something padded abruptly and scrambled to her hooves. There was a faint humming noise and the platform began to rise.
“P-Princess Celestia? What the hay is going on?!”
Celestia poked her head down the barrel. “You’re going to eat banana cake, Scootaloo! On the moon! Aren’t you excited?”
“No!” cried Scootaloo, trying to fly up the sides but instead falling onto her back. The floor continued to rise, and Scootaloo was able to crawl half-way out though she quickly got stuck.
Then the tube lurched forwards, and Scootaloo craned her neck back to see that she was in a cannon.
Celestia went to the rear and began fiddling with a fuse.
“W-Wait, please! Don’t send me to the moon!”
“Why not?”
Scootaloo gaped at her. “Because… because I’m not a bad pony?”
Celestia blinked. “Well of course, I know that.”
“Then… Why are you sending me to the moon?”
Celestia just laughed. “Oh, I can’t just tell you! That would ruin the fun!”
With that she struck a match and lit the fuse.
Scootaloo squirmed desperately as Celestia trotted around to the side. “But trust me, you’ll be fine. Have fun on the moon!”
The fuse slowly burned down, and Scootaloo braced herself. There was a massive boom and the next thing she knew, she was flying through the air.
“AHHHHHH!” she screamed, flailing about as she tumbled forwards. She flared her wings out in a desperate attempt to stop her flight, but as they began to flap, a thought occurred to her. “Wait… I’m flying!”
The realization banished all the fear from her body.
“I’m flying!” She cheered. She flapped her wings and stuck out her forelegs, smiling widely as the wind breezed through her mane. The feeling brought a rush to her system, matched by nothing else in her life, and she treasured every second of it. “I! Am! FLYING! I’m really, really--”
Her flight was short-lived however, as she very suddenly and very abruptly slammed into the ground.
“...Ow. Well, I was flying,” she muttered as she peeled herself off the ground. Once the dust cloud had settled, Scootaloo looked around to get her bearings. She quickly reached one irrefutable conclusion: “She wasn’t kidding! I’m on the moon.”
Scootaloo turned and squinted into the distance. High above her was the massive planet that held her home: blue, green, and absolutely beautiful. And yet so far away.
She sighed, looking around what she assumed to be her new home for the foreseeable future.
With nothing else to do, she began to wander around the barren, crater-filled landscape.
“Well… I may have misled you there, kid,” came the voice of not-Rainbow.
Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. “Gee, you think? ‘Oh, she’d never send you to the moon! She only sends bad ponies to the moon!’ What a lie that was!”
She kicked up a cloud of moon dust in frustration.
As the dust settled, Scootaloo realized that there were a series of hoofprints in the sand, sprawling out away from her. “Woah!”
With nothing else to do, she began to follow them. “What did Cheerilee tell us about the moon? It has no atmosphere or something? Like the parties Apple Bloom throws?”
She began to climb a small hill, looking up as hundreds of stars twinkled into existence above her.
“Oooo, that’s pretty! I can understand why Luna likes the night so much,” Scootaloo said. “And hey, if it’s nighttime all the time, that means it’ll never be time for school! Hey… I wonder if Nightmare Moon was on to something?”
Scootaloo shuddered at the name, remembering the old legends of the tale that befell Luna.
“...Then again, maybe not.” She faltered in her steps as a thought occurred to her. “What if Nightmare Moon is here?!”
Suddenly, the world around her was a lot less pretty and a lot more scary. The stars turned into menacing eyes that bore holes right into her soul, and she couldn’t help but shiver as she realized just how cold it was.
As she crested the top of the hill, she spotted a small cave in a nearby mountain. Scootaloo bolted for safety, tripping over her own hooves at the last minute and tumbling to a stop in front of the rear wall.
“Whew,” she groaned. “Well, at least I’m… safe.”
As her eyes wandered up the wall, Scootaloo realized that there was something scrawled into the surface.
“Woah… what does that say?” She climbed to her hooves and leaned closer to inspect the writing. “Nightmare Moon Wuz Here?!” she read aloud.
Scootaloo blinked, then screamed.
“Nightmare Moon is here?!”
She scrambled to her hooves and bolted out of the cave at top speed, squeezing her eyes shut as her heart pounded inside her chest. In a panic she leaped into the air at full speed, desperate to get away from the cave at any cost.
She was so desperate in fact that it took her several moments to realize that her hooves were no longer making contact with the ground. Scootaloo cracked an eye open and was shocked to see the ground was quite far away from her.
“Woah! What?!” She instinctively flapped her wings, hooves still flailing about as she started to spin. Seconds later she crashed onto the ground in another cloud of dust. “Was I… was that?” She scrambled up to her hooves, wings buzzing excitedly. “Was I flying?!”
Without a second thought she turned and bolted back up the hill. Scootaloo hopped in place several times, trying to replicate what she had just done. She backed up and took a running start, yelling out an eager yell as she did so.
As her hooves left the ground she didn’t feel the ever-familiar pull of gravity nipping at her legs. She spread her undersized wings and beat them furiously, her glee only growing as her body propelled forwards.
“WOO-HOO!” She extended her forelegs and stretched her body, revelling in the tingling at her wingtips. Scootaloo kept her eyes open this time, staring in awe as the ground kept moving below her, inching closer to her with every passing second. She looked back and gave a solid flap of her wings.
To her joy, the ground bounced lower. “YEAHHHH!” She struck a pose, imagining a fellow pegasus to her right. “And here comes Scootaloo, around the bend! Her archrival is right on her tail!”
Scootaloo glanced back at her invisible adversary and stuck her tongue out.
“They’re coming closer and closer to the finish line! They’re neck and neck!”
She pumped her wings harder, raising her voice as she yelled.
“And Scootaloo crosses the finish line! She’s done it! She’s won it for the Wonderbolts! The crowd goes absolutely insane!”
In contrary to her statement the rocky craters didn’t seem impressed.
But Scootaloo filled the gaps with her own voice. “Scoot-a-loo! Scoot-a-loo! Scoot-a-loo!” She did a flip in the air, shaking the hooves of imaginary fans while laughing the entire time.
When her hooves eventually touched the ground, she collapsed on the ground in sheer joy, giggling to herself the entire time. And when even those left, she lay on her back and smiled, the stars winking above her.
Then, she shot up to all fours and bolted for the hill to do it again.
The next several hours passed quickly for Scootaloo. She became captain of the Wonderbolts, then the Royal Guard, then the Element of Loyalty. She won races and slew monsters and saved Equestria thousands of times over, grinning as each flap of her wings took her off the ground.
And Scootaloo lived a million fantasies, each of her wildest dreams coming true beneath the buzz of her wings.
Eventually though, even her boundless energy ran out, and Scootaloo collapsed onto the ground, exhausted. “Whew,” she panted. “That was… great. But… how do I get home now?”
A deep and sudden rumbling broke her thoughts. “Woah!” Scootaloo stumbled backwards as the rocks shattered and from within the moon rose a massive metal cannon. On its side the words ‘Equestria Cannon’ were etched into its side.
“Oh. Well, I guess that’s my answer,” Scootaloo said with a shrug. She hopped into the air and flew one last small circle, relishing the feeling of flight before climbing into the cannon.
As before there was a deafening roar, and Scootaloo went soaring into the dark once more.
She watched as Equestria approached in front of her, a beautiful multicolored ball. Soon she broke through the clouds, and Canterlot greeted her with open arms.
As her momentum continued, Scootaloo made out the Royal Palace, and in the middle of it was an inflatable bouncy castle with a red ‘x’ in the middle.
Scootaloo landed squarely on top of it, bouncing up and down quite a few times due to her light weight before tumbling to a halt.
“You made it!” Before she could even get to her hooves, Scootaloo was scooped up in Celestia’s arms as the Princess pulled her into a crushing hug. “I’m so proud of you, Scootaloo!”
Scootaloo pushed away from Celestia, raising an eyebrow. “Wait, proud of me?”
“Well, yes! Why wouldn’t I be? You finally achieved your dream of flying, and with all that practice you did in the lower gravity, you’ve gained miles on being able to fly here,” Celestia declared.
“Then… Why'd you banish me?!” Scootaloo cried. “I thought you hated me! Or that I had screwed up really badly, worse than when I tried cheating in class when Miss Cheerilee was behind me.”
Celestia gasped. “No! You weren’t banished! I would never banish anyone!”
A voice behind them angrily cleared their throat and Celestia’s smile became strained.
“Anyone since you.”
Scootaloo shook her head in confusion. “Then… then why didn’t you just tell me what you were going to do?”
Celestia scoffed. “Why, where’s the fun in that? Prophecies don’t exist to be easily deciphered, Scootaloo. And besides, Pinkie Pie has been telling me that I need to be more fun! Apparently that’s what ponies want to see in a ruler.”
“I…” Scootaloo sighed, rubbing the back of her head. “I dunno. I just… how can I trust that you won’t do something like this again?”
Celestia blinked. “I’m Celestia! You can trust me!”
“No I can’t!” Scootaloo said, glaring at her. “You sent me to the moon without any warning!”
Celestia tapped her chin. “Scootaloo, truly I am sorry. What can I do to make things up to you?”
Scootaloo froze at that. “Uh, well… hm…” She suddenly perked up. “Oh! I know something!” She leaned over and whispered something into Celestia’s ear.
The princess nodded. “I suppose that can be arranged.”
“Great!” Scootaloo hugged her. “You’re the best!”
As the two embraced again, Luna’s voice spoke up from behind them. “Sister! Art thou done with the bouncy castle or not? I have dire need of it!”
The doors to the throne room slammed open, and Diamond Tiara marched in with her nose to the ceiling. “Princess Celestia!” The filly bowed deeply, unaware that Celestia was grinning maniacally at her. “Miss Cheerilee failed my paper, and I beg of you to ask her to overrule her!”
Celestia tapped her chin. “Why yes, I suppose I can help you. But one question, Miss Tiara. Do you like bananas?”
Diamond Tiara blinked. “Um… yeah? Why?”
“Because,” declared Scootaloo as she jumped from behind the throne. “You’re going to enjoy some… ON THE MOON!” She slapped the button beneath the throne, and laughed as the floor beneath Diamond gave way and the cannon rose from beneath.
“...and that’s why Diamond Tiara wasn’t at school today,” Scootaloo finished triumphantly.
Sweetie Belle blinked. “Um… are you sure all that happened, Scootaloo?”
“Of course it did,” Scootaloo said, wings buzzing in excitement as she began to hover in the air. “Would I lie to you?”
Sweetie Belle just rolled her eyes.
But before they could bicker any further, Apple Bloom’s voice cut in: “Hey! What did you mean my parties have no atmosphere?!”
