Alone

Chapter 3

“Well, damn.” Anon grunts, placing his hands on his hips as he walks alongside you.

That… could have gone better, definitely. Now you’re stuck doing hard labor for the next few days on the Apple farm. Could be worse, though; at least you and Anon will be doing it together.

“Sorry…”

Your ears droop down in shame and you look at the ground as the two of you walk. He sighs, and places a hand on your head, scraggling your mane a bit. “No worries, it’s just a few days hard work, right?” he smiles at you. “I’m sure we can do it.”

Your eyes widen and you look up at him in surprise. Not five minutes ago he was on the ground getting the grilling of a lifetime from Applejack, but here he is now, cheery as ever. “Yeah…” You kind of feel bad… if it hadn’t been for you not keeping up with him, he probably wouldn’t have ended up running into the stall in the first place…

“Hey, you hungry at all? We still haven’t finished our race to Sugarcube Corner yet,” he says, rolling his shoulders.

Oh.

It’s on now.

“Now you’re talking.” You grin and shoot off past him, that few-second head start giving you the boost you need to stay ahead of him. Now that you actually KNOW where you’re racing to, you’re going to smoke hi-

He just took off past you.

…Whoa, he’s fast… REALLY fast…

By the time the two of you reach the entrance of Sugarcube Corner, he’s easily an entire five or six feet ahead of you, maybe even more than that.

“C’mon, Scoots, you gotta do better than that!” he laughs, readying his shoulder for impact.

Wait, is he…!

You hear a loud *THUD* as Anon slams himself up against the door of the bakery.

Yep… he did. Failed to pull it off, but still did.

You slowly land on your hooves, flapping your wings a few times before retracting them back at your sides. You look at him with a smarmy grin. “That’s two things you nearly broke today, Anon; careful Pinkie doesn’t end up making you bake for her for the next few days too!”

He laughs at this, and scraggles your mane once again. “Don’t you worry about me, Pinkie and I are good friends,” he says, as he opens the door to the bakery…

There’s flour everywhere.

So much, oh man…

Did the twins get into the kitchen again? They always seem to make a mess…

“Oh! Hey Anon!” Pinkie’s voice can be heard from the other room, “Sorry about the mess, the twins got into the flour and decided they were going to play…”

Called it.

“It’s alright Pinkie, I’m just coming in here with Scootaloo to get a quick snack, that’s all,” he says, looking to you before cautiously stepping inside.

And that’s when he gets hit. An entire bag of flour, dumped right on top of him. You quickly duck out of the way of the impending powdery doom, landing in a small bit on the floor, but that pales in comparison to what Anon went through…

He coughs, tossing up a cloud of white smoke, before looking down at himself. “Aw, man! Really?” he glares up at the door. Turns out the twins had set up a kind of bucket-of-water prank, but with an open bag of flour instead. Anon, in this case, just happened to be the unsuspecting victim in a series of childish pranks…

And there they are now. They’re small, but you can see their little heads as the filly and colt both rush around the second floor, giggling to themselves at Anon’s expense. Even you can’t help but stifle a giggle at the sight. Anon just looks ridiculous!

“Guh, now I’m gonna have to get this stuff washed out of my clothes, and that’s gonna be such a pain…” he groans, trying to brush the flour off his clothes but to no avail. He sighs, giving up the futile attempt at cleaning himself off. “Hey, Scoots?” Your ears perk up a bit; did he just call you by that nickname? “Could you give me a hand? I need to get this stuff off of me, and it’s just…” he tenses up a bit, “Everywhere…” he shudders.

You nod; as hilarious as it is, it must feel pretty uncomfortable. And to have to wash that stuff off… Ouch. “Sure, Anon, I’ll help ya out.”

He nods and gives you his thanks as you help pull off his shirt, his arms and face still pale white from the flour, whereas his chest is-

…This is the first time you’ve seen it up this close. He really does have quite a toned chest…

No! Stop those thoughts! Bad Scootaloo!

“Ugh… I liked this shirt, too…” he sighs, before shrugging. “Ah well. Pinkie!”

“Yeah, Anon?” the pink pony asks, her head stretching into the doorframe, a smile on her face.

“Is it alright if I use your bathroom to try and get this stuff out? In the meantime, Scootaloo can chill out here. That okay?”

“Okie dokie!” Pinkie grins, before retracting her head out of sight.

He smiles and turns to look at you. “You’re alright with that, right? I won’t be too long.”

You nod. Might as well. “Sure, go on ahead. Need any help?”

He chuckles and shakes his head. “Nah, I can take it from here,” he says, taking a few steps inside, a few white imprints on the floor from his shoes trailing behind him. “I’ll be right back.”

And with that, he disappears behind the wall, leaving you alone in that room.

You sigh, walking over to a nearby table and sit down. You are not alone in this room, however… The soft pitter-patter of hooves returns…

They’re coming from both sides!

“Miss Scootaloo, are you friends with Mister Anon?” you hear a childish female’s voice come from the darkness before both the filly and colt appear, leaping and grabbing your forehooves, dangling on them.

“Huh? I guess I am…”

“Oh yeah? What’s his favorite color?” the colt asks, grinning proudly up at you.

“Well, um… is it blue?”

“Heehee! Nope!” Pumpkin Cake exclaims, the two of them letting your hooves go, before sitting at the table with you. “His favorite color is orange!” she giggles.

Your eyes widen a bit. Really? “Oh? How do you know that?”

She grins, seeing as she has your attention now. “He told me! He LOVES orange! This much!” She stretches her hooves out as far as she can to her sides.

“Yeah! And he’s got a-” Pound Cake begins, but is interrupted by a loud, annoyed groan from the other room.

“…You think we used too much flour?” Pumpkin Cake turns to her twin brother. He thinks for a few moments, and then they both grin at each other. “Nah,” they both say simultaneously, before giggling and scurrying off.

Huh. So his favorite color is orange…

“Gah, this is annoying! It’s turning into dough before I can get it out!” you hear him yell out angrily.

…You should probably go and help him.

Today is not your day, Anonymous.

Your favorite shirt. Ruined. Turned into a common pastry dish…

And tomorrow you have back-breaking hard labor for Applejack… things just aren’t going your way today. You let out a heavy sigh, holding up your now-doughy shirt.

A manly tear trails down your cheek. This shirt had been with you since day one…

“Hey Anonymous?” you hear a voice behind you.

Your tender moment with your former shirt is quickly interrupted, your tear ducts suck up that manly tear, and you turn to look at the pegasus behind you. “Oh, hey… what’s up?” you ask, hiding the fact that you had shed any sort of fluids out of your eyes.

“You need any help? I heard you yelling from down the hall,” Scootaloo says, smiling up at you.

You sigh, dropping the shirt in the water again, before slumping into a nearby chair. “There’s no saving it, Scoots. It was my favorite shirt, too…”

She groans at your melodramatic display, before walking over to the soaking shirt. “You put it in water with all that flour on it? Why didn’t you just beat it out and use a wet cloth first, Anonymous?” she asks, turning to look at you.

…Wait. Why hadn’t you thought of that? Damn, this mare seems to know her stuff.

“So, you mean… it can be saved?”

“It’ll take some work, but yeah, nothing major. Gotta get the dough off of the shirt first, though,” she grunts, picking the shirt up out of the water. “Just get a rag or something and scrub it off; that should do the trick as far as the dough is concerned…” She tosses the dough-covered shirt over to you, and you catch it. “After that, you’ll just have to get the rest of it out through some other means… Water isn’t gonna do you much good here.”

“Wow… thanks Scoots, didn’t think you’d be the one telling me about this kind of stuff.”

She grins at you. “Just because I’m younger than you, doesn’t mean I’m stupid when it comes to this,” she says. “Now let’s get this taken care of.”

The two of you spend the next hour or so violently scrubbing the dough out of both your shirt and pants. It took a while, but you finally managed to get all of the dough out of your shirt, and managed to save your pants without making the same mistake twice.

They lived to be worn another day. You couldn’t be happier.

Later on, the two of you are walking out of Sugarcube Corner, each of you with cupcake in hand and hoof, heading back to your house. “Thanks again for helping me back there, Scoots. I owe ya one.”

She grins back at you. “Heh, no prob, Anon,” she says, taking a bite out of her cupcake.

A comfortable silence, save for the sound of chewing, is shared between the two of you as you enjoy your cupcakes, before Scootaloo finally ends it. “Is your favorite color orange, Anon?” she asks, turning to look at you as the two of you walk.

“Yeah, it is. How’d you figure it out?”

She’s silent for a moment. “Wild guess, maybe. I dunno.”

“Well, for a wild guess, you were pretty spot-on.” You laugh before taking another bite of your cupcake, looking up at the evening sky, the sun just barely peaking over the treetops.

“Guess so,” she giggles, taking another bite herself. “So, you like running?” she asks.

“Yeah... I guess back on Earth I was really athletic, or something. I’ve always loved the feeling of the wind rushing across my body while running. It’s almost unreal.”

She nods, looking back down to the ground. “Yeah… it’s awesome.”

“Must be pretty amazing, having a pair of wings and all. Being able to do all of that stuff… I can’t even begin to imagine it…”

She suddenly becomes silent as the two of you walk, before finally reaching your house.

“Hey, listen Scoots. Really, thanks so much for helping me out today. I seriously owe you one.”

You kneel down and hold up a fist to her. “You really are a lifesaver.”

She hesitates for a moment, before lightly bumping your fist with her hoof. “Anon, I…” she mutters.

“Yeah?”

She stops herself visibly for a split second, before shaking her head. “Nevermind,” she exclaims before turning around and running off, before taking off into the sky.

…What was that all about?

Not that you can focus on that right now. Rainbow Dash should be getting off weather duty soon, which means more bro stuff with her, before… apple-bucking on Applejack’s farm…

You shudder at the mere thought of what may happen to you.

Stupid stupid stupid! How could he be so insensitive?! You grit your teeth in anger before shooting over the treetops towards the CMC clubhouse. Seriously, he KNOWS that you can’t fly well! Why would he say something like that?!

Except… you can’t be completely mad at him, for SOME strange reason…

He says something like that, you should feel angry at him, but you can’t feel angry enough as you feel like you should be at him, and now you’re starting to be angry at yourself for not being able to feel an appropriate amount of anger for him…

WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT?!

You groan, before landing softly at the entrance of the CMC clubhouse. Opening the door, you trot inside and close it behind you, locking it. The three of you established a few years back that if the door was locked, that meant that one of you wanted to be left alone, and this would be an easy indication of it. It usually happened with Applebloom after Hearts and Hooves Day; she’d lock herself in for a few days, and just sit there, sulking… not a lot of stallions liked her accent very much…

You sigh, turning on a light and walking over to your bed, leaping up onto it and burying your face into the pillow. Stallions didn’t even notice you, for that matter… They all had their eyes on much prettier mares than you…

Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, and even Sweetie Belle at times had more luck with getting stallions to like them than you did. But that didn’t matter to you, you didn’t care what they thought about you. To Tartarus with getting stallions to like you! Just because you’re a bit more tomboyish than other mares, that doesn’t mean they can treat you like that!

You roll over onto your back and stare up at your ceiling, at a huge poster of Rainbow Dash flying.

…Wonder what she and Anon are doing… Must be fun…

You sigh, closing your eyes. You need your rest. Tomorrow, you’re helping Anon with apple-bucking. That’ll be… fun…

End Chapter 3