Our Girl Scootaloo

Part 3 of 3

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She drifted though dreams and nightmares, visions of heaven interspersed with terrible visions where she felt her own mind collapse from within, memories burning and fading away like smoke. She kicked in her sleep, but wakefulness slipped out of her grasp. Sometimes she would imagine herself in heaven with the Crusaders, or back in school so long ago with her friends before everything went so wrong, but these happy visions drifted in and out of focus, never staying as long as she would like.

“It shouldn't be long now... You should stay, Pinkie; she'll want to see you.”

She tried to keep her spirits up, she really did, but the last few weeks since getting to know Faith had been some of the hardest she could remember... When Faith was up and playing and she threw her a party she felt sooo happy! But there was always that worry in every shadow and behind every closed door... the worry that Dr. Scootaloo might be right... That Faith might...

Pinkie shook her head hard to clear it. That was all done now. Yes, the old Faith in the hospital had... Her whole body shuddered as she squeezed her eyes shut tight. But now Faith had a new body and Doctor Scootaloo said she was going to wake up good as new and that meant the nightmares would stop and she could concentrate enough to plan parties again, and everything would be okay!

She tried not to think about it, but sometimes when she was distracted, or at times like this when there was nothing to do but wait… the conversation she’d overheard between Twilight and Luna came crawling back into waking memory despite her best efforts to banish it.

It had been the worried tone of Luna’s voice that had made her stop to listen.

“No safety net? Twilight, I do not understand you. You said you wanted to talk about a matter of great importance. Has something happened to Guiding?”

A ragged sigh followed, and Pinkie cautiously peaked around the corner to see what was going on. Twilight’s shoulders were sagging and there were dark circles under her eyes as though she hadn’t slept that night. True, the accident with Guiding Light had been a close call, but through sheer luck he’d survived the crash and last she’d heard he was still recovering well.

“Guiding is fine, or as fine as any pegusas can be after crashing through a window and being chased by a crazy person with a blunt object.” Twilight added with a shake of her head, “No, the problem is what almost happened.

Princess, you know that death is reversible under some circumstances; that a pony can survive in some form beyond the destruction of the body. The human scientists are calling it the ‘pony cloud’, but regardless of the name, its how we were able to undo so much damage and bring Scootaloo back.”

“Well yes, this is well known. The humans have the same thing I believe. One of them referred to it as ‘heaven’ in passing; apparently it was setup long ago by a powerful wizard called ‘Christ.’”

“Yes, I’d heard the same thing, and up until last night I hadn’t thought much more about it, but… After such a close call I went looking for information on this ‘heaven’ so we’d be ready if we ever needed to use it, but when I started asking detailed questions about how the magic worked…”

“Princess, they have no safety net! There are writings and texts beyond count, but they’re all self-contradictory mysticism and ancient tales! There isn’t a single modern text on how to use the magic safely! And all the examples of humans coming back from the dead are either unverified or thousands of years out of date! We’ve been operating all this time without a safety net!” Twilight visibly shuttered and Luna swallowed hard. “If Guiding Light had died yesterday… there is nothing on this world to record him, nothing that could bring him back!”

“Yes, and based on what I’ve found we need to institute a policy whereby all researchers on earth must check in with Equestria every few months, lest they lose all their work should there be another accident.”

Luna nodded seriously.
“Agreed. Thank you for bringing this danger to my attention. Your dedication to research is a tribute to your good name. I will implement this rule today.”

“Thank you Luna, but that’s only part of the problem. What about the humans?”

“Exactly. No safety net. When someone dies on Earth, they’re gone for good; there is no recording, no backup, nothing! A whole civilization being continually erased from existence! They don’t even have long-lived leaders like you and Princess Celestia; the oldest humans ever get is a bit over 100 years, and most don’t even get that much! They’ve managed to piece together working systems of government anyway, but when it comes to death…”

“What? How could any creature deal with the sure knowledge of its own destruction?”

“Some humans seem able to deal with it, to function even knowing they will be erased along with their parents and foals, but the rest… Princess, do you remember hearing about the bizarre ‘religious’ wars the humans have fought?”

“I do, though I could not make sense of their motivations. We have precious little ‘religion’ in Equestria, and certainly not enough to kill somepony over.”

“Well it’s starting to make a terrible kind of sense to me. Many humans can’t live without a safety net any more than ponies could, but until we showed up there wasn’t anything they could do about it. So they warped reality until they honestly believed they had a safety net. There are many different versions with different rules, but most have the same underlying structure: if you want to believe you’re safe and protected from this horrible situation then you have to do what your ‘religion’ says. I saw your expression when you realized you were operating without a safety net for just a few days. You looked horrified, and you’re one of the two oldest and strongest ponies ever!

“Imagine what it must be like for them; to be holding on to a delusion of protection based on a history of old legends, and then some other humans come along and tell you you’re wrong. That everything you need to believe to be safe is a lie. That you and your parents and your foals will be wiped out of existence, and there is nothing that can be done about it except to abandon your beliefs and accept theirs... Does that sound like a moderate position that can be settled through reasoned discourse and logic?”

Luna was beginning to look sick
“That… that is unthinkable! Violence would be nearly unavoidable!”

“They do better than most ponies would in this unbearable mess. Even with the deck stacked so heavily against them, most human religions manage to do tremendous good; they act as the conscience and moral compass for a lot of humans, much as you and Princess Celestia are our guiding lights.”

“We do need to check in more often, but until we have some solution to offer the humans, I’d ask that you keep the reason for this quiet, and not just from them. Death is hard enough on us when it’s mutable; to openly speak the truth of this here would be heartlessly cruel.”

Luna repressed a shutter as she agreed.
“Yes, Faith’s parents have been through quite enough without knowing the truth. If we should fail them…”

Twilight sniffed,
“The hardest thing is hearing their funeral rites… I read a lot of them last night, and seeing the recordings, hearing the joyful proclamations of future happy reunions when I know the truth of this world…”

Luna stepped forward and wrapped a wing around Twilight, pulling her in close as she continued.
“There… There was a wake for a father of two fillies, two human girls, just about Applejack and Applebloom’s age. They were sad of course, but to see them both speak so kindly of their father, to hear them talk of what they were going to tell him when they met him again when I knew, I knew it would never happen…”

Luna held Twilight tighter as she dabbed her eyes.
“I am sorry Twilight, I will not share this with anypony else.”

Outside the door, Pinkie turned and slowly continued down the hall in a daze, her long pink locks dragging along the floor.

Faith's mother was gently stoking her daughter's head again, calling her name as Pinkie blinked away the memory. Slowly, the figure in the hospital bed began to stir, and as Pinkie looked on with mounting excitement, Faith slowly opened her eyes to see her mother and father.

The little orange filly was sobbing her heart out, and it took several moments before they made out what she was saying.
“It's not fair!”

Confusion was writ large across every face as her father asked,
“What? What's not fair? Faith, what's going on? Are you okay?”

“Of course I'm not okay!” Sniff! “I... I had a wonderful dream that I... That we...” A fresh round of sob shook her little body as she choked out; “But it was all just a dream! And I'm still here in the hospital, I'm still...”

Dr. Scott handed her a tissue, and after a moment Faith took it in her hoof and dabbed at her eyes.

And then she just stopped dead, the tissue pressed against her face by her own hoof. Slowly her eyes opened to take in the room full of people and ponies around her, and when her tears came again they were tears of joy.

It took a long time before the cheering and hugging and crying finally slowed enough for anyone to be understood.

“Thank you thank you thank you!” Faith managed between sobs. “I love you all so much!”

“All right,” Dr. Scott interjected as she wiped away some tears of her own, “That's quite enough for now. Faith's body has been comatose for a long time and it's delicate! Please, lay her back down on the bed.”

“Faith, you can barely stand.” Dr. Scott admonished lightly. “You'll be up and about soon enough, but you must build up your strength first.” She picked up Faith up carefully and laid her back down with a pillow under her head. “Now, what’s the last thing you remember before waking up here?”

“I... I was in a hospital in heaven, and all of you were there too... I went to sleep, but then....” She shuddered at what little she could remember after that. “After that all I remember is some really bad dreams... I think Luna was there, but something was very wrong...”

Dr. Scott sighed in relief at finding her memory intact. The bad news had to be delivered sometime though, and this was as good a time as any.

“Faith... You died in that hospital. A series of massive strokes killed off most of your brain. Your... Old body, is still over there...”

Her mother and father clutched her hoof tightly as fresh tears left tracks down their cheeks. Faith squeezed their hands in return (a very strange sensation given she had hooves now) looking up into their eyes.

“Nope. According to our visiting Equestrian doctors, you're recovering nicely and will soon be a healthy young pegasus. Given that we've figured out the niacin deficiency that kept Scootaloo grounded, you'll even be able to fly in a few months.”

Faith found herself tearing up again as the reality became clear...
“Fly... I'm a pegusas now... and I'm going to fly...”

Her father leaned in with a silly smile,
“You know, this means you'll also get your cutie mark some day soon...”

Tears of joy were streaming down her face as she dumbly mouthed the words,
“I'm... going to get my cutie mark...”

Her parents drew her back into a group hug as the group dissolved into a mix of joyous tears and laughter. Caught up in the moment, Pinkie reflexively reached into her mane, forgetting she was still in the human world, and grabbed for her party cannon.

A mighty ‘bang!’ heralded the first earth shot of the party cannon as the celebration continued. It would be several months before the maintenance staff fished the last of the streamers out of the hospital ventilation blowers.

Some considerable time later Faith recovered enough to think again, cocking her head at Dr. Scott.

The little filly began to blush as she sheepishly asked,
“Uh... Does this mean I have to be naked all the time now?”

Half an hour later Pinkie stumbled from the hospital room, such was the disorienting strength of the emotional high brought on by all that had just happened. She narrowly avoiding the door as Faith's father caught it and followed after her. In the quite of the empty hallway he composed himself with some difficulty.

“Pinkie, I want to thank you for everything you've done for my daughter. She wouldn't be here today if it weren't for you.”

The blush spread across her cheeks as she tried to wave the comment away.
“It's okay. I just did what any pony would.”

He slowly brought out a small package wrapped in the wrapping paper sold in the hospital gift shop.

Pinkie demolished the wrapping, pulling out a tablet, some childhood drawings and a glowing nightlight shaped like a bear.

“I've been carrying these from hospital to hospital for far too long. Now, because of you, we don't need them anymore. Please, keep them all as a token of our gratitude for what you've done for us.”

The happiness welling up inside threatened to send her into tears again as she lunged forward and wrapped her hooves around him.

In the dimly lit office, Scootaloo Scott leaned back with a sigh as she pushed away from the monitor to stretch.
“Wow… The book is finally done. Nice job, Twilight; you got a good happy ending and brought us all up to the present.”

Twilight nodded sagely as she put another check on the tail end of a huge scroll and set it down on the moonlit windowsill. The rainbow, dimly visible as it wafted up from the edge of town was beautiful tonight, and the sight held her gaze a moment before she shook her head and replied.

“I caught up with Pinkie and got her story a few hours ago. All I have to do now is some formatting and send it off to the printers on two worlds…”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes.
“Really? Formatting? Twilight, you’re one of the most meticulous writers I’ve ever met. Any mistakes in this book will be on the heads of the publishers who post this. You’ve been at this for a long time and at nearly 500 pages it’s time to stop chasing ‘War and Peace’ and just publish already.”

Twilight grimaced,
“I know… It’s only been a few months, but it does feel like I’ve been at this for years…”

“Yeah! Four and a half years! Finish up already!” Pinkie’s voice shouted from somewhere out of sight making them both jump.

“I thought Pinkie was on her way back to Equestria tonight?” Scootaloo said with a raised eyebrow as she looked around for any sign of the pink pony only to find nothing out of the ordinary.

Twilight just sighed.
“Don’t bother to look, it’s just Pinkie being Pinkie. Though that is the first time she’s managed that trick on your world…”

Scootaloo’s raised eyebrow gradually lowered as she finished her thought.
“Anyway, if it sells as well as I think it will, maybe you can come back and do an afterword someday. There are certainly enough loose ends to follow up on.” She amended as she counted on her prosthetic fingers, “The pending population and immortality crisis, humanity becoming a magic race with all that implies, the coming waves of ‘half pony’ children who switch bodies to cheat death and the donor ponies who volunteer to be cloned, the cultural and economic impacts of trade and immigration between our two wildly different worlds…”

Twilight nodded,
“Not to mention the exploration of both our universes using the gate facilities to jump directly to our destinations! I really enjoyed that old TV show you sent me… ‘Star Trek, the next edition’ I think? I’m a little sad that we’re never going to build ships to travel to the stars now, but instantaneous transportation certainly comes with a lot less drama ! They’re already talking about setting up a gate facility in Equestria to allow jumps to Mars and some of the outer planets of your solar system. It probably won’t be long until humans and ponies will be walking on many distant worlds looking for life and seeding it along the way.”

Scootaloo couldn’t help but smirk at her starry eyed expression,
“True, and closer to home you can follow up on Faith and see how she’s getting on in her new clothing-optional lifestyle. Rarity mentioned the equine equivalent would be wearing socks in public all day?”

The only thing missing from Twilight’s startled and embarrassed expression was the sound of a needle being pulled from a record. After several moments to collect her thoughts and pointedly ignore her editor’s laughter Twilight added,
“True, but Faith isn’t the only transplant to follow up on: we’ve got Dashy’s father and Agent Tyler was also talking about buying a home in Equestria.”

“I do hope that works out, she’s had a rougher life than anyone I know; she deserves a quiet retirement and a coffee shop of her own.”

Twilight nodded agreement as she lay back in her chair and finally relaxed.
“I think it will all work out. We’ve got good people and ponies on both sides and with all of us working for a better future, everything will be just fine.”

The day had been long but good and despite the late hour she still had a spring in her step as she remembered that smile on Faith’s face. The train ride back to Ponyvile from Canterlot had taken the rest of the afternoon, but she’d made it in time to keep her promise of foal sitting for the Cakes so they could have the night off.

Not two minutes after they’d left, the twins decided it was time for a rousing game of ‘hide and seek on the ceiling,’ but after the day she’d had, it just helped them all burn off some extra energy.
‘That, and brush up on my lamp catching skills,’ she smirked to herself as she tucked little Pumpkin in for the night. She turned away with a contented smile, only to slam her right hoof into a table leg hiding in the dark.

“FFFFffffffffffffudgsicles” she managed through gritted teeth. ‘I really need to work on my lamp catching skills…’

The Cakes would understand a single broken lamp; at least this time she’d stopped it from catching fire. She gingerly lowered her throbbing hoof to the floor and stared into the darkened room searching for more traitorous furniture.

‘With all the things we knocked over, I'll need a new light. Let’s see…’ She reached into her mane and rooted around, coming back with a sealed mason jar.

‘Oh, right. I let all the fireflies go…’ She smiled briefly at the memory before rooting around again. ‘It is so good to be back home again. It can be so frustrating to have to carry everything in saddle bags.’

An oxy-acetylene cutting torch and goggles came next. Pinky turned on the gas and held the striker over the hissing nozzle before pausing to glance down at the two sweetly sleeping babies.

She rooted around for another moment before a thought occurred.
‘Wait – saddle bags!’ She carefully reached around the crib to where she had tossed her bags and pulled them over. ‘He said he had a night light in… Ah-ha!’

A soft white light spilled from the bag as she opened the box and withdrew the small glass teddy bear. She pulled the box out and set it aside, lifting the glass nightlight high enough to illuminate the nursery and the tremendous mess the three of them had made of it.

A strange unease washed over her and she paused, one eyebrow raised as she took a second look around. After a moment she shrugged and set the nightlight down on a dresser to busy herself with the cleanup while trying not to wake the little ones.

‘Blocks in the block box, dolls in the doll house…’ The mess of toys began to re-organize as her hooves flew from task to task, but as she kept going the feeling of undirected worry returned and her movements slowed.

Pinkie looked around the room again, carefully looking and listening for anything out of place.

The feeling of unease was unmistakable now, and with a start she realized the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up. A quick check of her twitchy tail –

With a sigh she tried to ignore the tension as she finished the cleanup and left to check the rest of the house. Forty uneventful minutes later the doors and windows were locked, the bakery ready for the morning rush and everything put back where it needed to go, sans only the shattered lamp in the trash can.

Both foals were still sound asleep as she quietly opened the door, but a quick look confirmed there was no ready replacement for the missing lamp.

‘Well, at least I can mount Faith’s old night light on the wall so the twins don’t break it.’ She thought with a smile.

A quick check of the box produced not a plastic or metal mounting bolt, but a small Velcro patch that seemed designed to stick the glass bear to fabric.

‘Huh?’ After a moment Pinky shrugged and pulled a push-pin from her mane to mount the hanger to the wall above the twin’s crib, illuminating the whole room with its soft white light.

‘Now then, can’t have you going out before the Cakes get home; where do I plug you in?’

A cursory glance showed no sign of any electrical plug. A more detailed look also turned up nothing; the glass teddy bear had no compartments, plugs, wires or batteries she could find. In deepening confusion she pulled a uni-charger out of her mane to see if the bear ran on stored magic.

The only mark on the little bear was a tiny engraving on the bottom. ‘Light of Love’.

The unease was back again, and stronger than before. Her pinkie sense would tell her if anything was dangerous, but so far… nothing.

She quietly picked up her saddle bags and sat down in the rocking chair by the door of the nursery, digging around until she found the little gift box from Faith’s father. Inside was a tablet and the well worn original packaging for the glass bear marked ‘Light of Love – Tritium’. She flipped it over to see the simple message on the back - ‘May your love always be a light in the darkness.’

Her quite mutter was enough for the tablet to hear, and the screen flashed white for a moment as a video loaded. As SONG started to play, Pinkie picked up the tablet to see a happy mother cuddling her newborn baby.

The image changed to a father reading a bedtime story to his little girl. Another image of a mother tucking her little one into bed.

A toddler took his first steps while his parents cheered. A little girl in overalls waved to her parents as she got onto the school bus for the first time.

The same parents now looking much older held their little girls hands as she walked through the big white doors of an MRI scanner room wearing only a thin hospital gown. A father read a farm animal book to a bald little boy. A mother walked into a clinic beneath a sign reading ‘bone marrow donation’.

A little boy called from his bed.
“I’m scared mommy! I’m scared of the dark!”

A pair of shaking hands hung a small glass bear from the lid of a coffin as the narration continued.

“Light of Love will light their way through the cold darkness and burn for ninety years.”

The image of a small girl hugging her parents overlaid the closing lid as a small voice sighed.

“The light of your love will stay with them until your time comes to be reunited once more.”

As the music wound down the tablet shook in Pinkie’s hooves and tears ran down her face. A simple message scrolled across the screen as the narrator intoned; “Remember, you are not alone. See some of the other customers who bought ‘Light of Love’ this year.”

The page changed once more and settled on a grid of pictures, all the smiling faces of children.

The slow blinking at the corner of the tablet gradually registered in her mind, but it took a moment to understand what she was seeing.

Slowly, almost against her will her hoof came down and touched the icon brining up a new page of smiling children.

He mane wilted until it hung straight and limp and still the pages came. Page after page of ‘satisfied customers’ to endorse the corpse light now hanging in the nursery. The tightness in her chest grew, breathing became harder, but still she tapped at the screen, the new faces flying by with greater and greater speed as she reached desperately for the end, for the last page of tiny smiling faces.

Eventually the pain became more than she could take. With a small clatter the tablet slipped to the floor as Pinkie collapsed into heaving sobs.

The sound of shattering glass came from the Cakes house one last time that night.

Our Girl Scootaloo 3 of 3

by Cozy Mark IV

3.29 Light of Love