You can't help but watch as the little pegasus filly leaps onto the counter, accidentally knocking the glass of water off the edge, causing it to shatter on the timber flooring.
"Uh, whoops." she says, looking at the shards of glass. "Sorry about that."
"Oh, Scootaloo." you say with a sigh as you kneel down and pick up a piece. "You're such a troublemaker." You put the piece back down and tousle her purple mane with your fingers. "Why don't you go play in the living room while I get this mess cleaned up, okay?"
"Okay..."
You watch her as she jumps down from the counter and playfully bounces into the next room. You smile and kneel down, opening up the cupboard under the sink and taking out the dustpan and brush.
One month ago, you never would have thought that you would ever go to Equestria or babysit Scootaloo for a whole night, but here you were, and you never wanted to go back home.
After cleaning up the mess, you walk into the living room where you sent Scootaloo.
"So, Scootaloo," you say, walking through the doorway. "What do you wanna-" You stop and look around, the filly is nowhere to be seen. "Uh, Scootaloo?"
You search around the room, but upon concluding that she isn't in there, you step into the hallway. You look down both ways, listening out for her, and walk over to your bedroom. You place your ear against the door, and you can hear the distinctive noise of the bed, springing up and down.
You walk in, and of course you find Scootaloo, jumping up and down on your bed.
"Hey, Scoots? Can you not jump on my bed please?" you ask, trying to be as earnest as you can.
"Aw, you're no fun!" she says, stopping.
"Well I have to sleep in that bed and I don't want you to get my blankets all sweaty. Why don't we play a game?"
"Alright!" she said, leaping off the bed. "Let's play hide and seek! You count first!" As soon as she finishes talking she bolts out the door, and you sigh as you sit down on the bed and begin fixing up the covers.
Suddenly, you hear Scootaloo's short squeal, followed by the unmistakable sound of smashing glass.
"Scootaloo!" you yell as you run into the dining room and quickly locate the filly. You see her, looking quite dazed, as she lay halfway through the glass door of your liquor cabinet. "Scootaloo, are you okay?!" you ask as you help her out.
"Uh, yeah, I'm fine..." she says as she brushes some glass out of her mane.
You pick her up and examine her, just to ensure she's not cut anywhere, and surprisingly enough, she's not.
Scootaloo looks at the damaged cabinet. "Geez, I'm really sorry about that." She looks inside and takes out a bottle of wine. "What's this stuff for anyway?"
"Uh, nothing." you say, taking the bottle from her. "That's my liquor cabinet, I've been meaning to get rid of it."
"Get rid of it? Why?"
"Because I'm a really bad drinker. If I get too drunk I go really insane..."
"Liquor?" she says, looking at the other few bottles that weren't broken. "You mean alcohol?"
You look down at her unsurely. "Yeah... Why? And how do you know what alcohol is?"
"You should drink some." she suggests. "I'm sure you'd be way more fun. You need to be less uptight."
"Excuse me?" you say sternly. "I'm not uptight, I'm just... mature."
"Come on." she pleads, putting on her cutest face possible. "Please?"
You look down at the bottle of red wine in your hand, and then back at Scootaloo. "Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to have a little..." you say, removing the cork, which was already quite loose from Scootaloo's impact. "But I shouldn't. I'm really bad with alcohol, I'll end up drunk and doing stuff that I don't want to."
"But you're too strict, you need to loosen up." she says, pushing the bottle towards your mouth. "You'll be fine!"
You look down the long neck of the bottle, slightly afraid. "Er, alright..." you say, although you know you shouldn't. "But just so you know, anything that I do after I start drinking, I can't really control myself."
"Yeah, sure, whatever." she sighs.
"Well, here goes nothing." You press the lip of the bottle against your mouth and tip it upwards, and although you know it's going to end badly, you take a large swig of the red poison.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You let out a long, deep moan as you wake up, you're head aching like it had just been hit with a hammer. "Mm, my head..." you groan as you open your eyes. "What happened last night?"
You slowly get up out of bed, feeling weak and tired, and slowly lug yourself down the hallway in search of answers of why your head hurts.
You take a single look in the lounge room and instantly see the empty bottle of alcohol, sitting on the coffee table.
"Oh, crap..." you mumble to yourself as you piece together the evidence. "I got drunk and I'm having a hangover!"
You stumble into the dining room to find the liquor cabinet, the door smashed. "Oh, that's right." you say to yourself. "Scootaloo's here, I forgot. Where is she, anyway?"
As you walk back into the living room where the bottle was, you're still distracted by the fact that you can't remember anything past the point where you started drinking. The living room still looked okay, so you weren't too concerned about whatever you did last night.
You walk into your spare room where you had made a bed for the filly, to find something extremely disturbing. Scootaloo's not in her bed. In fact, the bed's still made from last night, meaning she hadn't even gone to bed last night.
"Hmm..." you mumble to yourself as you return to the living room. "Oh, what did I do to Scootaloo last night?"
You go around the house, checking all the rooms for the filly. You even check the cupboards, just to be sure. Anything could have happened last night.
You sit back down after checking all of the rooms. All except one, the basement. You don't want to go down there, because you know that if she is down there, then you must have done something terrible.
You hesitate as you place your hand on the cold doorknob that leads to whatever awaits you in the basement. You slowly turn the knob and push the door open slightly, allowing you to see the first few steps to the cellar.
You take one step down, and then another, trying to listen out for any sounds that would indicate she's down there.
With another few steps, you're able to see into the basement, but it's difficult as it's dark down there. You take another couple of steps, running your hands along the wall beside you to try and locate the light switch.
You find the switch and place your finger on it, looking back into the dark room.
"Scootaloo?" you whisper ominously as you flick the switch under your finger.
The lights turn on with a flicker, the room completely visible now. You reel in fear at the sudden image you see in front of you. It's Scootaloo, tied down by all four legs to a table, which was lying vertically against the back wall. She's bruised and scarred, broken glass and orange feathers lying on the ground beneath her.
You can see her small chest slowly moving up and down, indicating you that she is still alive, but from the way it looks, she's not far off death.
"Oh no..." you say to yourself as you run down the remainder of the steps.
Suddenly, Scootaloo jolts her head up and looks at you. Her eyes widen and her face twists in fear. "No, please!" she cries out as she tries to break free from her ropes, squirming in every direction. "Don't hurt me, please!"
You slowly approach her, trying to calm her, but you find it difficult as you're just as scared as she is. "Scootaloo, calm down. I don't want to hurt you."
This proved ineffective as the filly continued to twist her body around, fluttering her wings to escape in fear of you. "Get away from me!" she cried. "Please, don't hurt me!"
"Scootaloo, I'm... so sorry." you say, slightly crying. You look down at the glass on the floor. "This is what happens when I drink!" you yell, kicking a large piece across the room. "I'm sorry."
Scootaloo looks at you, and sees the tears in your eyes. She doesn't calm down, but slows her twisting, still trying to pull her legs free.
You continue to approach her, slowly raising a hand to her face, which she tries to pull away from. You run your finger under a long cut which goes from her cheek to her muzzle. "I can't believe I did this to you." you say worriedly. "I'm so sorry..."
"Ca- Can you please untie me?" Scootaloo stammered.
You move your hands to one of her hooves, and begin untying the first knot. Once that's done, you move to the next one, then the next one, and then finally to the final knot.
She drops to the ground, weak and injured. She coughs a few times, before standing back up. She wobbles a few times, before getting her balance. She looks up at you, her left eye black and swollen. You slowly reach down to pick her up, but she takes several steps backwards under your desk.
"Please, Scootaloo." you say, kneeling to her height. "I didn't mean to hurt you, I'm sorry. Can you please come out of there?"
She shakes her head nervously, and slowly shifts to the left towards the stairwell.
You take another step towards her, which just makes her feel more scared, her feelings clearly shown on her face.
Just as she reaches the end of the desk, she bolts out, galloping up the stairs to the living room. You follow her, wondering where she's going, and you come to the top of the stairs. You look around the room, until you see the front door, wide open.
"Oh no..." you think worriedly to yourself, already predicting where she's headed. "Rainbow Dash is going to kill me."
