Twilight Sparkle entered the library again as the sun began to set. For a small moment she expected to be greeted by her number one assistant, but remembered that he was currently in the Crystal Empire helping Princess Cadence with her correspondence to Princess Celestia. Now she wished he would be here instead to send her letter to the Princess asking for help searching for a lost filly.
Her mind wandered back to her confrontation with Rainbow Dash. The look in the pegasus eyes before she fled left a bad feeling in her heart. Before she could dwell on it any longer the door opened again. Fluttershy quietly shut the door again before turning to Twilight.
“Did you find anything?” she asked. Twilight merely shook her head and watched as the pegasus in front of her let her head droop.
“Perhaps the others had more luck. Let’s get some tea ready before they come by.”
Fluttershy followed her into the kitchen and helped prepare something to drink. Neither one of them actually wanted anything to drink, the entire process more of a way to keep busy and not to think of anything bad. Twilight heard the door open and close again. Rarity announced that she and Pinkie Pie were waiting in the seating area. After the tea was ready she and Fluttershy joined them. Before any of them could say something the door opened once more revealing the tired looking form of Applejack. She closed the door with a hindleg and joined the others.
“Any of ya find anythin’?” Applejack asked and dropped onto her haunches.
“I visited all of her schoolmates with Sweetie Belle. None of them had seen Scootaloo.” Rarity informed them while levitating a cup of tea for herself. Her mane was frazzled and betrayed her otherwise calm exterior.
“I checked the river as far as I could into the Everfree, but couldn’t find anything.” The fact that Fluttershy of all ponies had ventured into the Everfree Forest alone, spoke volumes of how worried she was.
One look at Pinkie Pie also made clear how she felt. Her otherwise bouncy hair had lost its spring and was beginning to go flat. “I checked all good hiding spots and even went to the mirror pool, but it is still sealed off.”
Twilight sighed. “Then we have checked all of Ponyville. I asked every shopkeeper and pony around, but none of them saw anything. We are going to have to widen our search.”
“What about Rainbow Dash? Perhaps she found something?” Pinkie chimed in.
“I don’t think so. Otherwise she would have told us. Wouldn’t she?”
“Perhaps she would have if you hadn’t been so mean to her before.” the pink pony replied with a frown. Twilight winced at the accusation.
“If I would have seen her again I would have apologized. I know now that I was out of line. But do you really think she would not tell us if she had found her? She might be angry with me, but not with you.”
Pinkie let her head hang low. “Yeah. I guess you are right.”
“Rainbow Dash is not our primary concern right now.” Rarity said and patted the pink party pony beside her on the back. “What should we do next?”
“Ah figure that the entire town now knows somethin’ is up. Might as well involve them all in the search.”
“Applejack is right. We have to expand the search outside of Ponyville.” Twilight looked to the clock on the nearby wall. “It’s dark now soon. As much as I hate to say it, we won’t find her in the dark. We could walk right past her and not see her.”
“Yeah, but she might see us and call us over.” Pinkie said.
“If she still can do that ya mean.” Applejack voiced what the others were thinking, but were afraid to say out loud.
“How dare you to say that!” Pinkie glared at the orange earth pony. She only saw the unwelcome truth in the farmpony's eyes before Applejack averted them to the floor. Pinkie Pie looked to the others for support, but found that none of them would look her in the eye on that matter.
“But…. but….. Twilight might know a spell or something to find her, right?” it sounded almost pleading.
“I know of spells to locate ponies in smaller areas. That’s how I always managed to beat my brother at hide and seek.” her small effort to cheer the others up fell on deaf ears, so she continued on. “I will look into it and try to find something to widen its effect. For now there isn’t much we can do.”
Pinkie Pie sat on her haunches and looked sadly at the untouched cups of tea in front of her. Aside from Rarity none of the others had touched it.
“Head home and try to get some sleep. We’ll meet here again at six and discuss how to continue.” Twilight decided. None of the others protested and silently shuffled their way out of the library.
Rartiy hung back a bit and watched Twilight move towards the nearest bookshelf looking for a book. As she began piling up select tomes near her desk, Rarity moved beside her.
“You are planning to pull an all-nighter as Spike would say?” Twilight answered by pulling out three more tomes and setting them beside the already stacked pile next to her desk.
“Is there anything I can do?”
Twilight looked over to her friend. Rarity’s mane was out of shape and dark rings around her eyes spoke of much needed sleep.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but this isn’t magic that fits your style.”
The white unicorn hesitantly had to agree.
“Please do not overexert yourself. We will need you tomorrow morning.” She said before giving her a tired nod and leaving Twilight alone in the Library. Moments later Twilight poured herself a cup of tea and flipped open the first book.
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It was dark when Rainbow Dash finally gave in and stopped her search. As good as her eyesight was she could not see in the dark, especially not in a dark forest where the moonlight could not penetrate the thick foliage. The more the sunlight had faded, the more frantic her search had become. And the more her feeling of despair had increased. She reluctantly flew back towards the ledge to try and get some sleep.
A cloud would have been preferred, but over the Everfree she could have woken up the next morning on the other side of Canterlot if the winds were right. So she decided to use the hard stone ledge instead. Her first idea of staying down in the forest she dismissed due to the creatures roaming about. Timberwolves, Manticores, Hydra, Cockatrices and worse lurked in the forest and would make a meal out of her. The thought that Scootaloo might have fallen prey to one of the creatures there had entered her mind and for a while she had toyed with the idea to expose herself to the potential prospect of becoming a meal herself by sleeping on the ground. It would have been a deserving punishment.
She had given up that train of thought, for she had to know what had happened to Scootaloo before anything else. With a heavy heart she sank to the ground and curled herself up. Memories of how her little fan cheered her on during her stunts came unwillingly to her mind. How she looked up in amazement as Rainbow Dash told her a story of one of her adventures. The overjoyed expression when the elder pegasus agreed to take her under her wing.
All those memories paved the way for more painful ones from Rainbow Dash’s own past. She then did something she had not done for many years. High up on the mountainside the pegasus cried herself to sleep.
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It was dark when Scootaloo awoke again. She yawned and stretched in the fluffiness of the cloud. Sleeping on a cloud was so much better than a bed she decided. As she stretched her sprained leg she let out a small yelp and the memories of what had happened came flooding back.
In one swift move she sprang up and looked around. Thanks to Luna’s bright moon she could see far better than she would have expected. To her shock she saw that the stormclouds had broken up during her sleep and she was now standing on a lone cloud almost twice as large as she was.
“Oh, this isn’t good.”
Her stomach rumbled at the distant thought of her last meal. With no other options she took a few bites of cloud using the water to somewhat calm her stomach down. After that she took a look at the landscape to try and figure out where she was. Carefully looking over the edge she saw nothing that seemed familiar, so she turned her attention to the horizon.
Far away loomed the mountain that she had jumped from earlier that day. Judging from the size of it she must have been traveling on the winds for some time. Canterlot was no more than a tiny sliver on the horizon. The other directions revealed no towns or places where she might have found help. That left her with three options.
The first one being to get to the ground somehow. One look down made it very clear that she would most likely die in that attempt.
The second option would be to stay on the cloud and hope that it would take her somewhere where she could be found. While it seemed like the safest bet, she knew that clouds could break up by themselves in areas that were not controlled by weatherponies. And it could potentially take days before she came across another pony. By that time she might have starved to death.
That left option number three. Somehow get back to Ponyville or at least the mountain, but how?
“Ok, think Scootaloo. What would Rainbow Dash do?” after a little thought she came up with the same answer as before.
“She would fly away.” she groaned and rubbed her face with a hoof.
Then a thought sprung to her mind. She looked down at her cloud once more and an idea was born. She could fly now too in a way. After all she had flown for some time hanging off her live saving marshmallow cloud earlier. So why not do that again, but this time fully prepared. Scootaloo dug her hooves into the cloud and made sure she had a good stance.
“Just like riding a scooter.” She said to herself and began buzzing her wings.
Much to her eternal glee the cloud moved without protest or resistance in the direction she faced. Almost jumping up from joy, she resisted and instead adjusted her course by shifting herself around. Grinning much like Pinkie Pie after a successful party she took course towards the mountain.