The Art Of Despair

It was a warm and nice summers evening, Ponyville was quiet and peaceful, the sun was about to go down, painting the horizon in beautiful orange, red and purple colors. Near the edge of Ponyville, in the main residential area, fours houses away from the Carousel Boutique in a peaceful looking, wooden building it wasn't as peaceful as it seemed from the outside. Scootaloo, an orange pegasus fill with a short, purple mane was sitting at the kitchen table and was trying to do her homework. The filly was trying to solve a, for her, difficult math problem. “Given an 2n by 2n chessboard, with one corner removed, show that you can cover it completely without overlapping or going off the board using only triominoes of the above shape... What was the 'n' standing for again?”  Scootaloo said quietly to herself as she was chewing on her pencil. “Something with variables that-” Before she could finished her sentence the door swung open and another pegasus, a mare with a white coat entered the room, her expression showed that she was annoyed, her purple/lightblue mane was messed up as if she had been outside in a storm, but the weather was fine. Scootaloo looked up to her mother. “Were you having a fight again?” She asked flatly and the pegasus mare turned her attention towrds the filly. “Be quiet and finish your homework, if your father sees that you are doing them so late again he will get really angry.” Scootaloo looked over to the kitchen clock, her father was probably at the pub right now, usually he was back before 9pm, and that would definitely not be enough time for her to finish her homework, so she closed her book and put it back into her saddlebag, together with her pencil and the paper she had been writing on.

“I'm done anyway, I'll be in my room, night.” she then said and left the kitchen.

She could hear a voice from behind as she was walking up the stairs. “Goodnight Scoots.”

The pegasus filly closed her door behind her and let out a sigh, she loved her mother, and her stepfather was nice most of the time, but he was nothing compared to her real father. And he was an earth pony, which was the reason she Scootaloo wasn't even able to fly yet, or at least she believed it was the reason. Her parents have been fighting a lot lately, her stepfather was really strict and often told her mother that she was way too nice and that Scootaloo would never grow up or fail at life if her mother wouldn't stop pampering her daughter. Scootaloo jumped into her bed and pulled her 'Wonderbolts' covers over her little body. She was lying there for a while, just thinking, it was the third time that she wouldn't have her homework finished now. Partially, it was her own fault, she could have done them in the afternoon, but she had been watching Rainbow Dash practicing today. The filly could hear voices, her stepfather was home. And he seemed to be upset, his voice rang trough the entire house, they were fighting again, what was it this time?

“...when I come home, I expect something to eat on the table! You're too stupid to...”

“I'll make you something to eat! Darn it! You were at the pub, I thought you'd eat there.”

“The food there is way too expensive, I could have eaten there if you wouldn't spend all of my money for your child!”

”She is our child, not only mine.”

“She is a useless squirt, she gets worse at school everyday because she's outside and does nothing, only worships this joke of a pegasus.”

The fight went on for a while but Scootaloo was sick of listening to it already, her stepfather says she is the reason they don't have enough money. Sure he was probably drunk, but why would he say something like this? She was not only sad but also angry.

Scootaloo woke up in the same, weird position she had been lying on her bed when she was listening the fight between her parents. It was dark now, the crescent moon spent some light but not that much since the sky seemed to be slightly cloudy. The filly sat up in her bed, it was quiet but she could still hear her stepfather talking about her in her head. She decided to get up and slitenly walked down the stairs into the living room. The ticking of the clock on the wall was the only noise she could hear. A bit nervous she sneaked into the hall and put her hooves on the handlebars of her scooter. She opened the door and pushed her scooter outside. Her parents had been fighting again and this had upset her greatly. She was slowly riding along on her scooter without any goal, just down the mainroad that led to the market place, and out of the village. The little pegasus didn't even care that she was riding into the Everfree Forest. she let out a dpressed sigh before speaking to herself in a half sob "I'm not useless."

After a while the surroundings turned darker, the sky wasn't visible anymore because it was covered by the tree tops. Following Scootaloo without the pegasus being aware of it was a small, darkblue cloud that was spotted with stars. The pegasus filly stopped, she had to take a break to calm down, Scootaloo was about to cry, her eyes slowly filled up with tears. The cloud flew behind a tree and a pony materialized. It was a filly, about the same size as Scootaloo. Her coat was black like obsidian  and she wore a purple vest, Her mane and her tail were purple, almost like Scootaloo's the cooler was more like Rarity's mane, shiny. The filly was a unicorn with turquise eyes and a friendly expression. "Hey there! Cool scooter!" A voice came from behind Scootaloo's back as the other filly approached the the pegasus who jumped at the new voice for she thought she was alone. Quickly she wiped away her tears and rided her self of emotion, she debated to jump back on her scooter and  get out but in the end she decided to test fate as she thought  'After all, what was the worst that could happen?' She quickly ran over some of the memories that were nagging her, then smiled before turning around to thank the the voice. Scootaloo saw the other filly and felt a bit better, at  least it was just another filly. "Thanks, um can I ask what you're doing out here?" She asked tentavly and looked around, shivering slightly, not from her cold wet coat but from an uneasy feeling brewing deep in her guts. "Well, I am on the way to Ponyville and I am from um..." The black-coated pony tried to remember the map of Equestria to find a town that was on the other side of the forest as Ponyville. "I'm from Fillydelphia, I am Twilight Sparkle's new student, my name is... Moonshine! You can call me Moony. Nice to meet you! I bet you are from Ponyville." The filly said and walked around Scootaloo as if she was looking for something. „I am lost, can you show me the way to Ponyville?“ Scootaloo sighed and nodded, thinking about how the only good things in Ponyville were Dash and the Crusaders. she took a deep breath and coughed from the cold air burning her lungs then proceded to speak. "Fillydephia, thats cool, and yeah I can show you the way, and um, sorry about you to get stuck there with a crazy egghead." Sure, it was weird to meet another filly in the Everfree Forest at... what time was it anyway? Probably past midnight, but maybe she was also having trouble with her parents and had run away from home, using the story with Twi as an excuse or maybe she was lost and walking through the forest for hours. Scootaloo didn't really care, she smiled and extended her hoof. “Name's Scootaloo, you can call me use...im mean Scoots" She facehoof'd from almost calling herself useless.