A Friend In Scootaloo
WHOOSH!
Scootaloo grinned as she left the rest of Ponyville in the dust. The wheels of her scooter almost began glowing from the friction as they left long, winding trails along the main street of the town.
Scootaloo’s expression soon turned from joy to shock – right in the middle of her usual scooter route, Fluttershy was slowly ambling across the road, followed by three rather adorable otter pups. Scootaloo gritted her teeth as she pulled off an intense 90 degree turn, narrowly avoiding Fluttershy and her family of otters but slamming straight through the door of Pinkie’s cake shop.
Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie barely had time to calculate what happened. Pieces of wood were strewn all over the floor and Scootaloo lay motionless in the middle of the heap of debris. Rainbow Dash didn’t even think twice before dropping the cupcake she was holding and running to the young filly’s side.
-- ⚡ --
It had been a fairly calm day at the hospital, no major monster attacks, no dessert poisonings, not even a single idiot wandering off into the Everfree Forest. Then Rainbow Dash came charging through the door – oh no!
The nurse ponies all tried to push each other out of the way, none of them wanting to deal with the Pegasus who had faked injury not once but twice, and even set off all the alarms one night just to borrow a book! If she had a serious problem, Celestia help everyone!
The unfortunate nurse who ended up speaking to Rainbow Dash put on a fake grin. Her eyes darted down to the orange filly with small wings Rainbow Dash was carrying, before darting back up to Rainbow Dash herself.
“Rainbow Dash I presume?”
“Nah, I’m Twilight Sparkle, I came to inspect your book collection”. The nurse’s nervous inquiry was met with a surprisingly cheerful tone from Rainbow Dash, the light rasping sound of her voice clearly coming through. “Listen, my friend Scoots here got a bit banged up trying to ride her scooter through a door, ya think you could take care of her?”
“Yes, sure, we’ll find a room straight away”. The nurse was becoming cautiously optimistic – a big mistake.
“Oh and by the way,” Rainbow suddenly shifted her tone as she leaned towards the nurse intimidatingly, “don’t let anything bad happen to her, understand?”
The nurse’s optimism drained out of her and dispersed out of existence itself – she nodded nervously.
-- ⚡ --
Scootaloo awoke to find herself in a boring white room. It was beyond anypony’s wildest imagination. If you had tried to imagine the most boring room in history, it wouldn’t be as boring as the room Scootaloo was in.
She thought about lying back down to sleep when she spotted a rainbow coloured card on a white table next to her. She picked it up and smiled as she read the inside.
“Get well soon, Scoots!” was written in messy but loving hoofwriting on one side of the card, while a photo of Rainbow Dash was seen on the other.
“Rainbow Dash is so cool”, Scootaloo thought out loud to herself.
“You know Rainbow Dash too?” A grey mailmare in the bed next to her replied. Her voice was comforting for some reason. Her eyes looked kind of weird, but not in a bad way.
“Yeah, who doesn’t?” Scoots giggled.
“I’m Derpy”, the mailmare smiled, leaning over to face Scootaloo.
“Scootaloo”, came the reply.
-- ⚡ --
Their conversation was interrupted when the nurse from earlier walked reluctantly into the room. While just the sound of Derpy’s voice was comforting, just the look on the nurse’s face was enough to make the hardiest pony fear a meteorite impact might be imminent.
“I… have some news”, the nurse said solemnly, looking directly at Scootaloo. “Your injuries should be better by the end of the day, but –“
“But what?” asked Scootaloo, in the most nervous and innocent of voices.
“But we found something else – your wings – they have a rare condition. We… don’t think you’ll be able to fly.”
“Ever?”
“I’m sorry, I wish there was something we could do. Is there anything we can bring you or –“
“I – I just want to be alone, if that’s okay?”
The nurse nodded, tried to smile, then backed out of the room and shut the door.
As soon as she was gone, Scootaloo put her head in her hooves, and started sobbing.
-- ⚡ --
“Uh, I don’t mean to interrupt –“ started Derpy.
Scootaloo wiped away her tears and looked up curiously at her.
“I just couldn’t help but overhear, and, well, I think I might be able to help.”
Scootaloo’s eyes lit up. “You mean you can make my wings better?”
“No, but, I’ve been different my whole life too, and, it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Just look at my eyes!” Derpy’s eyes switched directions as if she was subconsciously demonstrating the point.
“But I’ll never be cool, like Rainbow Dash!”
“That’s not true”, Derpy responded in a confident but gentle tone. “I used to think that too, when I was a filly, but then I learned that I could still be cool in other ways”.
Scootaloo knew a story was coming, she wriggled into a comfortable position and her ears perked up towards Derpy.
-- ⚡ --
“My mum and dad were the two most fun ponies ever”, Derpy explained, “they’d take me to the beach, take me to the park, they were awesome! But, they did notice from the start that I was a bit weird. One of my eyes would also go in a different direction to the other, it’s like my eyes were arguing or something!”
Scootaloo giggled at this, and Derpy smiled back, her eyes swapping back again.
“And I was always clumsy too – they thought it was a normal part of being a baby pony, but then, it never stopped. Then I went to school, and that’s when things got really bad”.
Derpy recalled the image of the other fillies stealing her favourite toy and leaving her crying in the sandpit.
“All I ever did was try to be nice to the others, but they always teased me, and called me names, and took my stuff. My parents and I got sick of it, so that’s when we decided to go see the doctor, to find out what was wrong with my eyes, and why I was clumsy all the time.
The doctor said that I had a ‘disability’ – that I’d always be like that. He said he could teach me to control my clumsiness a bit better, but my eyes would never change. I didn’t know what to think.”
“So… did it ever get better”, Scootaloo asked, clearly upset by Derpy’s story thus far.
“Well, my eyes didn’t get better, but after a while, I realised they didn’t have to. As the other fillies grew up, they started to see that I wasn’t so bad after all, and I started to see that having weird eyes could actually be kind of fun!”
“Fun?”
“Yeah! It means I always have something to talk about for a start, so I never have to be bored!”
“That is pretty cool!”
Scootaloo was beginning to cheer up.
“Yep, and as time went on, I got a job, made new friends, I was even a reserve on Ponyville’s Equestria Games flying team.”
“You mean with Rainbow Dash? When Ponyville won in the closest Equestria games ever?” Scootaloo said in awe.
“Uh huh, with Rainbow Dash! So you see, even if your eyes or your wings don’t work quite right, you can still be cool, even without flying!”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure!”
-- ⚡ --
It was the afternoon, Rainbow Dash bucked the last cloud out of the way and took a second to admire the usual awesome job she did clearing the sky, before flying down towards the hospital.
The door to Scootaloo’s room swung open, and Dashie saw her sleeping comfortably, hugging the get well card like a teddy bear. Rainbow Dash walked over to Scootaloo and gently nudged her awake with her front hoof.
“Huh?” Scootaloo yawned as she looked up. “Rainbow Dash!” she suddenly exclaimed as she jumped out of the bed and hugged her friend tight, still holding the card.
Dashie laughed “alright there Scoots, calm down, I wasn’t in a warzone or anything! The nurses said you’re ready to go home, so I came to pick you up.”
“D-Did they tell you anything else?” Scootaloo asked, suddenly becoming nervous.
“No, not really, they said you might have something to say later though. I bet you started reading the Daring Do book huh?” Rainbow Dash grinned.
“Well, not exactly, I’ll uh… tell you later.”
“Alright Scoots, well I’m just glad you’re okay!”
As the two pegasi left the room, Scootaloo turned around and waved back at Derpy. Derpy smiled and returned the wave.
-- ⚡ --
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- BudCharles · 1.1k words · 24 0 · 1.9k views
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A good first effort. The few minor punctuation errors here and there didn't really detract from the humor and feels in the story at all. My biggest complaint is that I wanted more of Scootaloo's emotions to play out. It seems a tad rushed. And I should know, pacing is probably my biggest problem as a writer as well.
Also, your avatar looks... childish. It could push some readers away. There are better pics of Quilava out there, I'm sure.
I agree with 6274342 , this is a good first effort, burdened primarily by unusual pacing. Frequent scene breaks can work for some stories, but I feel like they deprive this one of room to breathe. With that said, I liked the action near the beginning, as well as your characterization of Derpy.
I feel like you have potential as a writer. I hope you will keep writing more horsewords for our enjoyment. Therefore I will nit-pick a few things:
I feel it is good form to give the chapter a title, even if you just re-use your story title. There is also a group devoted to this practice.
Who's saying the "oh no"? (I get that this is probably for dramatic effect, but it's more effective to have someone actually go through the reaction you're giving us.)
Pleas do not tell me the room is boring; use an interesting description that leads me to draw my own conclusion about the room.
6274342 The avatar has been changed now :P Yeah I do see what you mean, I had this nagging feeling that something was missing from Derpy's recount but I just couldn't figure what it was, and it was giving Scootaloo a chance to react. Thanks for the feedback!
Also yay someone knows what Quilava is! :D
6274737 Thanks, I'll definitely write more because I did say I would if people wanted it. I'm not sure exactly when though because of school and such, but yeah there will be more coming eventually. My ideas tend to look better in my head than they turn out but I guess that will improve with practice?
6285515 Idea-wrangling is always one of the hardest things about writing.
This is... cute, but lacjs the substance of a really good story. You're skipping over the important scenes as if they should be obvious. I'll just go ahead and drop this little bomb on your tent, your readers WANT to read those obvious scenes, regardless is it's obvious or unoriginal. I was hoping for a cute, bonding fic... instead I get the teaser trailer to something that seems canceled half-way through production.
I say with all the disappointment and encouragement I can, so, Try Harder.