While the most of the other students had opted to turn their letters in at various points during the week Scootaloo had decided to wait until after school on friday to hand hers in. She knew her plan was a long shot, and the first obstacle she would have to overcome was to convince Cheerilee to send her letter, without reading it. If Cheerilee did read her letter, her kindhearted teacher would offer to help, or at least try to make up for the lack of attention she received at home and Scootaloo didn’t want that. School and her friends were her only refuge from her home life, and the last thing she wanted was to be reminded how lonely she felt throughout the day.
They would mean well and do their best to keep it quiet, but ultimately every “How ya doin Scoots?” and “Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight?” would be colored with pity and Scootaloo didn’t need anyponies pity.
She considered trying to sneak the letter into the accepted pile but because Cheerilee only had one pile on her desk that seemed unlikely. She thought about just mailing the letter to Canterlot herself, but she couldn’t be sure the princesses would see it that way, it was far more likely it would get lost in an ever growing pile of fan mail. So without any better ideas and time growing short Scootaloo tentatively approached her teacher’s desk when school had let out on Friday, hoping to prevail upon Cheerilee’s well known sympathies.
“Here’s my letter to the Princesses Mrs. Cheerilee. Umm I know you said you’d pick the best ones to send, but I was kinda hoping that you could pass mine along without reading it.”
Cheerilee looked at Scootaloo quizzically. Her students knew better than to ask her to break the rules, but this was done in such an obvious way that Cheerilee doubted there was ill intent behind it. Surely a student wishing to game the system would come up with some sort of ploy, and this was an utterly guileless request. “Scootaloo, I can only send a few letters to the Princesses and it wouldn’t be fair to the other students if I chose yours without reading it. Can I ask why you don’t want me to read it?”
“It’s kinda personal, I wrote some things I don’t want anypony else to know,” Scootaloo said, her unease plainly evident.
Her instincts that this was not a student seeking to cheat her way to a prize confirmed Cheerilee decided to investigate further. “Oh I see. I’m not a princess, but if you’re having problems maybe I can help you?”
Scootaloo shook her head. “It’s okay Mrs. Cheerilee I understand, you have to be fair.” Scootaloo slowly took her letter in her teeth and began to trudge out of the classroom, her faint hopes dashed. As she watched the orange filly walk away Cheerilee was overcome with compassion. Her empathy for children was one of the reasons she became a teacher, and every instinct in her body was telling her that Scootaloo was seriously hurting.
She was doing fairly well in school, she wasn’t sullen or withdrawn and she didn’t come to class with bruises so Cheerilee doubted she was being abused. Besides she had met Dizzy, there was simply no way she was capable of hurting her daughter. Building trust is about small steps.
“Scootaloo wait,” she called out before the filly had a chance to open the door.
“Yeah?” Scootaloo looked back and dared to hope that Cheerilee might help her after all.
“I promise I won’t read your letter. If you’d like me to send it to the princesses I’ll do it, because I trust that you’re being honest with me. And I hope that if you ever did need anything you would trust me enough to let me try and help you.”
Scootaloo smiled a wide smile as hope was allowed to flourish in her mind once again. “I will Miss Cheerilee, thank you!”
Luna walked into the castle library expecting to find her sister and a small stack of letters. Her ears drooped when she found her sister sitting next to a small pile of them instead. “Looks like this will take longer than I thought dear sister.” In response Celestia levitated about half of the pile over to her sister, leaving the rest for herself.
They each read their stack of letters patiently and carefully but were overall not impressed with the reasons the school children of Equestria had for wanting to join their exclusive club. Even with the teachers weeding out roughly three fourths of the responses, most of the letters were not at all compelling.
The most common refrain was that a student wanted to be a member of the ruling family so that they could “help other ponies”, never mind that most of them failed to mention just how they would use their newfound power to “help” anyone. There were a few who did specify how they would help but failed to consider the long term implications of their actions. One colt noted that his Dad was always grumbling about taxes, so his plan was to get rid of them all together. Quite a few children wanted to ban homework or school, and one filly had a plan to give everyone free ice cream and candy.
Soon three piles began to form, one for the letters that Luna wanted Celestia to read, one for the letters that Celestia thought Luna should consider, and one for the outright rejections; the reject pile being considerably larger than the other two. Luna tended to favor the letters where the student admitted that at least some of the desire to be crowned was borne of a selfish motivation, while Celestia tended to favor the letters where students professed a willingness to learn more about what being a princess was really like. Neither Diarch was impressed by any of the letters attempting to flatter them with phrases like “I want to be a princess so I can be just like you.”
However, when Luna got to Scootaloo’s she felt a profound sense of sadness emanating from the piece of parchment, hers was certainly unique amongst the reading so far. She levitated the plea over to Celestia, “What do you think of this one Tia.”
Celestia read it carefully, her face betraying no emotion aside from a small pursing of her lips. “A touching letter, but I’m not sure this was meant to help a daughter connect with her mother.”
“Tia, a little filly is clearly hurting and is desperate enough to seek our help. That is reason enough to consider making her a princess, unless you’ve found a letter with a reason that is not ‘I wish to do whatever I want all day’.”
“Luna, unfortunate as it is, many fillies and colts wish to spend more time with their parents. We cannot make them all royalty. Furthermore I am skeptical that making Scootaloo a princess would help her in the manner she seeks.”
“Ignore that then. You know as well as I do that she is a kind hearted little filly, and she is desperately seeking some small measure of affection. Even if we can’t give her what she really wants we can give her that.”
While Celestia didn’t entirely agree that playing surrogate mother was the best course of action, she couldn’t deny that they had yet to find a letter with a more worthy reason. “Set it aside, and if we don’t find a better reason I shall reconsider.”
It's cute, enough that I want to see where it will go. Writing-wise, it's passingly done; nothing glaringly wrong, just little things that I think are more a case of learning the craft.
Keep a-goin!
5225091 Woot Passingly done! Yeah I know this needs some work, but thanks for the comment.
I like it so far.
This is a real nice story you got going. Can't wait to see more.
5225567 Thanks
5225467 Thanks, since it was your idea I'm glad you approve of my handling.
5225467 As do I.
Dammit. I didn't ask for these feels:(
5227402 That's actually a pretty funny idea. DT is accidentally announced as the winner, thus the princess are obligated to make her a princess under some obscure equestrian law, when she's princess she figures out a loophole to depose the other two princesses, and then proceeds to rule mercilessly.
Imprison all the Blank Flanks!
But your highness, most of the "blank flanks" are babies!
DID I BUCKIN STUTTER?! ALL THE BLANK FLANKS!
I'm not going to write it but someone should
5226551 Can't believe I missed that, fixed and thanks.
5227737 And then the babies stage a rebellion to avoid being imprisoned.
5228044 It's not, but keep in mind that Cadence oversees the Crystal Empire in northern Equestria, and Twilight has her own castle in Ponyville. They don't call Canterlot home, and merely show up whenever it is required for them to be around.
5227914 It's kinda funnier if they don't. But anyways I'm not actually going to write this so have at it.
5228324 Hey, even babies have their limits. You're never too young to not want to go to prison.
5227737 hmm..... I may write that...... but not now I got my hands full atm
5228367 A rebellion of blank flanks (including babies) against Princess Diamond Tiara, who would win?
5228372 hehe most likely the blank flanks ha it be fun to type one of these days.
5228388 Outsmarted by a bunch of babies, even as a princess Diamond Tiara can't catch a break.
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Decent story so far.
Not bad... On one wing, it feels like Luna's argument(s) is a little weak, but at the same time, at least you have Celestia balancing it out with reasons for why not.
5229120 If you're telling me it needs more Rarity, then good news, in my archive of stories that aren't quite ready to be released yet is a Rarity focused story. If you mean more twilight then I have no news for you, and if you just meant more purple things then I have no idea what your talking about. If you meant purple prose then I have bad news as I try to avoid that.
Scoots becomes a Princess!
Pinkie Pie: And that's how Equestria was un-made!
5229703 I was unaware it was a style, but yes, that plot seems annoying.
I want to see chapter 3 soon!
So far, your story gets the mustache seal of approval!
5231270 working on it, the is my fav seal of approval along with the so thanks
Do you mean a large pile?
Overall, I like your story so far. Looking forward to the next chapter!
5232526 nope, I meant to imply that a pile is larger than a stack. I stand by it. Glad your enjoying it anyway.
5232551 Oh, okay. I was confused about that sentence. Sorry about that.
congrats on 100 likes
5228402 It's like CODENAME Kids. Gah! It's been so long since I've seen that show D:
5233748 I know. That was a classic.
5233791 No. I mean my mom is a single parent. She has me, my brother, and sister.
5235272 I was replying to your comment about Codename Kids Next Door. Sorry if you got mixed up.
5236910 Oh... Shit. I loved that show. The rest of my family hated it though.
5237540 Why?
5237595 Fuck if I know. They hate just about every show I watch
That should be 'considerably.'
We're off to a bit of a slow start with these first three chapters, but I like the concept. I like the way you write Scoots in the Promises stories so I'll track this for now. I am interested to see where you're going with this.
Liking it so far, please continue with this as soon as posible.
So far, so good. It could use a bit more work on prereading. Also, put some kind of visual break between scene changes.
For example;
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>
Something like that lets the reader know the scene changed.
Logical that they ignore all the other letters as soon as Scoots is read, but give the rest to have their say.
5240457 There is literally a button that inserts a Horizontal Rule.
in the
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