Chapter 1:
Scootaloo woke up with a splitting headache. The heavy blanket on her back was soaking wet.
Perhaps it had rained.
She scanned her surroundings with aching eyes, hoping to catch the glimmer of a street lamp. Perhaps she was in a dumpster; her nose was too congested to smell anything.
Something moved above her; sluggish, and much too noisy to be a cat.
“Daddy?”
Just like that the silence was shattered. Scootaloo felt a breeze across her nose as the thing overhead dropped down to her level. It landed lightly, and she saw a pair of green eyes before her face.
Something much bigger was moving too. It took all her strength to pull the blanket over her head and draw the edges beneath her.
There came the sound of a match being struck, followed by approaching hooves. They didn’t sound like her father’s.
“Scootaloo, are you alright?”
The mare’s gentle voice calmed her even as her fevered mind struggled to find for it a face and name.
“Do you know where you are?”
There was a gentle tug on the blanket, and Scootaloo let go. The cloaked mare pulled it back just enough to reveal Scootaloo’s face.
She was a young-looking unicorn, tall and muscled like a brick hauler. Her muzzle was cream, the rest of her face a light brown, and her ears chocolate; taken together she looked like a street performer in a clown mask. Two brown patches above her nose gave the impression of a moustache. With her dark blue cloak swirling around her ankles she seemed always to be hovering just above the floor. Now she reached out with a two-hued foreleg and placed her hoof on Scootaloo’s forehead.
“This is the Canterlot Orphanage,” Gari explained with a gentle smile. “Your father dropped you off yesterday morning. Do you remember?”
Scootaloo grimaced. Sweat was dripping from her short, unkempt mane, but her head felt like it was encased in ice. Nodding once made her nauseous, and for a moment she tasted the tomato sauce from dinner. She began to tear up.
“Come on, Scootaloo,” said the colt with the green eyes that barely peeped over the edge of her bed.
He reached out with one gigantic hoof and tapped her shoulder, inadvertently disturbing her overstrained innards.
Gari set down the bucket just in time.
“Here,” she said as Scootaloo lie panting with her face hanging over the side of her mattress. She propped her up in bed and gave her a sippy cup of cold water.
Scootaloo drank greedily, but the small mouth of the cup forced her to slow down. Gari waited for her to finish, then wiped her face with a warm towel. Then she set her down on the pillow and tucked her in again.
“You are sick, Scootaloo,” Gari said. “I am here to take care of you. I’ll get you a fleece sheet so you’re not wet for the rest of the night. I’ll be outside for if you need anything. This is Morning Rain, if you don’t remember.”
The off-white colt, who was now backed against the wall, waved shyly in her direction. Scootaloo could not decide if he looked strange because of his hooves, or his equally massive wings.
“You’re going to get better,” he said softly before hopping back up to his bunk.
Gari pulled off the damp blanket and added a layer of dry fleece. The candle on the nightstand was momentarily engulfed in a golden aura, and its flame faded without a flicker.
Scootaloo quickly sank into a deep, painless sleep.
#
It was past noon when Scootaloo woke up again. She felt like her rib cage was split wide open, and her nose was full of pebbles.
The room in which she found herself was simple and cozy. On the walls were several crayon pictures, and there were a few books on the desk. Muffled voices came through the closed door. Scootaloo tried to get up, but was immediately incapacitated by a splitting headache.
She waited for ten minutes before the door swung open and Gari stepped in with a tray balanced on her back.
“It’s good to see you awake, Scootaloo,” she said with a warm smile. “Are you feeling any better?”
“Naw,” Scootaloo murmured, pressing her head into the pillow.
“I have someone with me this morning,” Gari continued. “He is a doctor. He is here to do a checkup. Do you understand?”
Scootaloo snorted loudly and drove her face into the pillow.
“I think you’ll like him,” Gari said. “In any case, he needs to see you if you are to live here. And I think you’ll like him.” She turned to the door. “Come in, Greg.”
Scootaloo’s eyes went wide when what looked to be a massive eagle stepped into the doorway. Then he turned, and she saw the rest of his body. The feathers ended at his shoulder, replaced with a tan coat. His tail was a slender rod except for a brown tuft at the tip, and his fleshy feet were those of a lion.
“You’re a griffin!” Scootaloo exclaimed, sitting up despite her uncooperative body.
“That I am,” he said with a soft chuckle. “I hope that is not a problem.”
“My dad told me so much about griffins!” Scootaloo said. “I never thought I’d see one in real life. I thought you all worked on the railroad!”
“Many griffins do,” Greg said as he unpacked his equipment on the desk. “I was raised here in Canterlot, however. I have been a physician for many years. You are in good hands.”
“What’s a hand?”
“I like you,” Greg said. “You actually listen. This is a hand.”
He raised a foreleg and wriggled his four digits in front of his face. It looked in every way like a bird’s foot, and Scootaloo could not help but find the display a little unsettling.
“Griffins don’t have hooves,” he said. “Now, I know you’re not feeling well, so I will make this quick.”
Scootaloo was kept wrapped in fleece for most of the checkup, and only left the comfort of her bed to be weighed. It was early summer, yet the air felt cold. Greg answered many questions about griffins, and some of the answers were even stranger than Scootaloo had imagined. Gari gave Scootaloo fleece pajamas before returning her to the bed, and Scootaloo immediately put up the hood.
“It’s not too bad,” Greg concluded. “Not the flu, thankfully. Eat well, stay warm and get lots of sleep. Gari, are you sure Rain won’t be a problem?”
“I can move him if he makes any trouble,” Gari said. “This is his room, though. For now I trust him.”
“I trust you,” he said from the door. “I’ll be back in a week for shots.”
Scootaloo whimpered at that notion, but her anxiety was quickly forgotten when Gari brought over the tray.
Breakfast consisted of oatmeal and fruit. Scootaloo was a little disappointed at the small portion, but there was no denying she was comfortably full in the end.
Scootaloo spent what was left of the day in bed, and was asleep for half of that time. Gari checked on her regularly; dinner was served along with a spoonful of amber syrup that numbed her throat. Her room was high up, so she could not see the courtyard through the window from her bed. She could hear the sound of other kids playing, and much as she wanted to join them, Scootaloo knew that she couldn’t; she barely had the strength to walk down the hall to the bathroom.
Gari was careful to keep the other children out of the room, but that did not stop Shining Dawn from sliding a card made of red construction paper under the door. It was full of signatures and messages, and despite not being able to read Scootaloo spent twenty minutes looking over the gift.
The evening was getting dark when Morning Rain burst into the room and slammed the door behind him. Heavy knocking persisted for a good minute; it sounded like somepony was trying to buck down the door.
“You lose!” Rain yelled breathlessly. “I’m keeping the button!”
The door shuddered one last time before the pony outside retreated in defeat.
He placed something small on the desk, then unbuckled the two belts around his midsection and let his wings fall limp to the floor. Then he looked at Scootaloo.
“How are you?” He finally asked.
“Not great,” Scootaloo said. “Feels like my head can explode.”
“I hope it doesn’t,” Rain said. “Hey, look what I found at the gate today.”
With his teeth he picked up the trinket from the desk and deposited it on the bed in front of Scootaloo. It was a rather large circular button, the kind used to fasten cloaks. It was gold on the front and back, even inside the little hole where the thread would go. Its face was gently convex, inlaid with tiny, white gems that sparkled even when Scootaloo shaded them with her hoof. A polished silver crescent stood out from the gold.
“It’s real pretty,” Scootaloo said.
“Sure is,” Rain said. “Harvest Moon really likes it, but I wouldn’t give it to her. She’s just going to put it in a box with all her other buttons. Do you want it? I bet if we brought it to Gari she could put it on your winter cloak.”
“I don’t have a winter cloak,” Scootaloo said.
“Not yet,” Rain said. “You’ll get one. Everypony gets one.”
“Really?” Scootaloo said. For a second her head stopped hurting. “You’ll let me use it?”
“Yeah,” Rain said with a shy smile.
They were interrupted by the door. Gari glided into the room, her swirling cloak making her seem even bigger than usual. Morning Rain backed into the bedframe. Scootaloo shuffled closer to the wall; she didn’t know why. Gari didn’t seem angry.
“Ah,” Gari said with a sigh of relief. “There it is.”
The button in Scootaloo’s lap rose into the air in a pale yellow aura and drifted to an inch in front of Gari’s face. She seemed to examine it intently for a second before sweeping it beneath her cloak.
“Thank you, Morning Rain,” she said with a reassuring smile. “This button belongs to one of the guardsponies. He reported it missing last night. I hope you are not too disappointed?”
Neither of the children could think of an answer. Certainly they did not expect to have their new toy taken away so soon.
“I found it,” Rain said blankly. “I… I thought we could keep stuff like that.”
“Normally you can,” Gari said. “However, this is a very special button, and quite valuable. Don’t worry, Rain. You’re not in trouble.”
Rain relaxed considerably, but he was a bit on edge for the rest of the night. Even after Gari left he seemed restless, and Scootaloo woke up twice that night to see her roommate reared up on the windowsill peering into the courtyard.