“Alright Cutie Mark Crusaders, what are we gonna to do next?!” Apple Bloom asked ecstatically as they put away the freshly extinguished chess board.
“Um, we could… Oh, I know! We could be puppeteers!” Scootaloo suggested.
“I don’t know,” Sweetie Belle responded, “I’m not a fan of puppeteers.”
Outside in the bright orange light of the evening amidst the old apple trees speckled with gleaming red apples just a few days from being ready for harvesting walked Applejack and Rarity. They were laughing and having a delightful conversation about the once again approaching Gala. This year they were both considering the possibility of being constantly swarmed by ponies for saving Equestria from both Nightmare Moon and Discord, helping in expelling the Changelings from Canterlot, and saving the Crystal Empire from King Sombra. Rarity, of course, wish for all that attention and more, but Applejack was scared of that eventuality, because she didn’t want to become a celebrity who’s every move was watched by thousands, if not millions, of fans.
As they neared the tree house, they curtailed their discussion, and Applejack yelled, “Apple Bloom! Come on down, you’ve got chores to do!”
“Yes, and Sweetie Belle dear, it’s time to come home,” Rarity called.
“But Rarity, can’t I stay a little longer?” Sweetie Belle pleaded.
“Now no buts Sweetie Belle, it’s time to go.”
Sweetie Belle sighed and went down to join her sister, while Apple Bloom stayed up with Scootaloo to clean up.
“Apple Bloom, do I need to get Big Mac down here?” Applejack threatened.
“Just a minute!”
“Now Apple Bloom!”
“I liked it better when you were Appletini,” Apple Bloom muttered, “Come on Scootaloo, let’s go.”
“That’s okay Apple Bloom, you go ahead, I’ll finish up here,” Scootaloo replied.
“You sure, it’s getting dark,” Apple Bloom said.
“I’ll be right behind you on my scooter,” she assured.
Apple Bloom shrugged and went out to join the three waiting ponies. Scootaloo shut the curtains except for a slit of which to watch them leaving. With sad eyes see saw them messing around and having fun together, and she wished sorely to have a sister of her own. She went over her backpack and opened it. Inside was her blanket and the few bits she had. She nodded and went around the club house cleaning up and gathering the few things she had from around it, and stuffed them in her bag.
She went out and hopped onto her scooter, and despite the bag on her back, rapidly flapped her wings to accelerate. Besides crusading with her friends, riding her scooter was her favorite thing to do, and was one of the only things left that still made her happy. Scootaloo always worried what she’d do with her scooter once she can fly, or has her cutie mark, or both. It was too precious to her to ever get rid of, but she feared that it would soon no longer be a part of daily life.
By the time she had reached the center of town the sun had nearly set and the early autumn chill began to descend onto Ponyville. It was not too late, however, for the chariot to not be running. Yes, there was a chariot service to Cloudsdale because even the fillies that can fly don’t have the endurance to fly all the way to the city, and some older pegasi even take it because they are either too old or too lazy to make the flight themselves. Looking up at the clock she saw that it was ten to eight and sighed, the chariot came at eight fifteen. She paused briefly to toss her backpack against the wall before proceeding to continue practicing tricks. For the most part she was working on perfecting her front flip, a stunk completely dependent on her wings to work. First she had to go insanely fast flapping as hard as she could, then she had to jump and gain or maintain air by ‘flying’, and finally had to control her landing range with her wings. She need to work especially on the last part, a fact that was clearly displayed by the lovely scrape on her entire left cheek.
As she warmed up she of course did not notice that she could now do a double tail whip with ease, whereas a month ago found it near impossible. To her, success on the scooter was insignificant, so she didn’t see how much stronger her wings were getting. Perhaps not it would not be soon, but it was obvious that she would fly.
As per usual, she quickly lost track of time, and the chariot was swooping down to the stop. She had to use every ounce of strength her wings had left to get there, get her bag, and get on before they took off. Luckily the fliers today knew Scootaloo well, and would not leave without her. Once on, they soared into the gentle twilight towards the brilliant flying city.
Scootaloo took her blanket out and settled near the front of the chariot where it was vacant, since the back was crowded with ponies who would jump off and finish the flight themselves. It was not difficult to get to sleep despite the noise on the chariot, but she was, seemingly minutes later, woke up by the lead flier announcing the stops.
“Next stop Glitzville, again, our next stop will be Glitzville!” He announced.
Glitzville, the commercial part of the city. Scootaloo closed her eyes again, it would be a long time until her stop.
”Wait up Scoots!” Rainbow Dash called laughing from behind.
Scootaloo whirled around to see the cyan mare flying behind her, “Hey Rainbow, how are you?”
“Great! But you’re about to be better, because I told the captain about you, and she said she’d hold a private tryout
just for you!”
“What?! No way! When?”
“Right away, come on, don’t want to keep her waiting!”
“What! Now? What if I don’t do well?!”
“Scootaloo, you’re one of the best fliers I know, you’ll do fine”
“Okay,” Scootaloo said, “Where are we off to?”
“…Home.”
“Wha…?” Scootaloo jumped, “Oh, it was a dream…”
“Scootaloo, we’re at your home,” the lead flier told her.
“Oh! Sorry…” Scootaloo rushed to tuck the blanket in her bag and grab a few bits of the team of fliers.
One of them saw and said, “No, that’s okay Scootaloo, you don’t need to pay.”
Scootaloo frowned, she didn’t like to be treated differently just because of her situation in life, so she dropped the bits in the box anyway and trotted away with her scooter safely on her back. She trotted around back despite the pitch black nature of the moonless night. From memory she located the dumpster and tucked her scooter behind it. She walked over to the back kitchen door and waited. Soon a butler arrived and did a double take because he was stunned.
“M-miss Scootaloo, why are you using the back door?” He ‘inquired’ Scootaloo would say from the ridiculous way he spoke.
She sighed, “You’re new, right?” He nodded, “Okay, first, don’t call me ‘miss’. Second if you haven’t seen, this morning I really destroyed my face on my scooter, so I don’t want my mom noticing. Third, I’d like the usual delivered to my room, I don’t care that you don’t know what that means, the chef will understand. One last thing, if anyone asks, I’m not hurt, got it?” And she continued through the kitchen, leaving the butler at a loss for words.
She climbed the stairs and into her room. She tossed her bag onto the king sized mattress and continued into her private bathroom. She jumped into her shower and twisted the knob all the way to ‘H’. She washed off in the scalding water, not noticing it was easily hot enough to burn even when it ran into her fresh scrapes. After ten minutes she assumed her food would arrive soon, so she turned off the water and grabbed a towel as she stepped out of the steamed glass stall. As she exited the bathroom she threw the towel into the hamper and walked back into her main room. She went over to her desk, which she had converted into her music station, and began blasting the latest Vinyl Scratch record.
She heard a knocking on the door and shouted, “Come in!”
A butler carrying a tray of food timidly opened the door into room the blaring music, “Just put it on the table over there,” Scootaloo instructed, and once he had and left, she jumped on the love seat next to it and began to eat.
Soon, however, the phone rang, and she was forced to quit eating to answer it, “Hello.”
“Hey Sweetie, how was school?”
“Just fine Mom, how was work at the factory?” Scootaloo asked more out of politeness than interest.
“Quite frankly it was a mess, since your father is away on a trip to Manehattan, I had to run all the presidential stuff myself. It really was rather annoying. Have you eaten yet?”
“Yeah, eating right now.”
“Alright, I’ll let you get back to that, see you tomorrow.”
“See ya,” and Scootaloo hung up.
She finished up eating and called for a butler to pick it up, then she hopped into bed for the night.
Author's note you know what, I really like affluent Scootaloo, much better than poor-and-desprate Scootaloo, tell me in the comments if you'd like to see more of rich Scootaloo, because I smell a longer fic coming from this.
