//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Light in the Dark // by R-B-D //------------------------------// Light in the dark Chapter 4 ‘’Anypony!... Please help…’’ The filly’s voice faded. She wanted to keep shouting, but the realization had struck her that nopony could hear her calls for aid anyway. They were probably still miles into the Everfree Forest, far out of auditory reach. She trotted around the silhouette in the clearing, still trying to get a glimpse of something, just a little something, that would prove that the pegasus was still alive. ‘’No! She’s not dead… She’s just… Sleeping. Yes. I can see her chest moving, she’s still breathing. She’ll be fine. She’ll make it… Come on Scootaloo, do something, she’s counting on you right now!’’ She told herself, trying to talk courage into her own mind. She started limping around at speeds which most ponies would think of as impossible with just three legs. She was hopping around the edges of the clearing, grabbing the leaves from the larger plants and putting them over the body in the clearing to try and shield it from the cold streams of water as much as possible. If she knew one thing for sure, it was that she was not going to leave the mare behind. She would stay with her until they were rescued. She would keep helping in whatever way she could, even if it would be the last thing she would ever do. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ‘’Come on sis, hurry up! We’ve got ta find them fast!’’ ‘’Now slow down just a second Applebloom. We don’t even know for sure if there’s anythin’ wrong with them. Even if they are in trouble and we manage ta find them, we still need ta have energy left ta help them get back. If they would’ve been able ta get back themselves they’d have done it by now ah reckon.’’ They had been walking for many hours on end now, travelling deeper into the Forest with every passing minute. They were still moving in the direction in which they had spotted the broken branches earlier, figuring that, if they would just make a beeline towards it, they would have the most chances of coming across the missing mare or filly. Keeping a straight path was not an easy task however, as the many obstacles created by the forest made it hard to continuously keep on track. The complete darkness of the night didn’t aid their travel either, having to rely on a small oil lantern Applejack had brought with her, as she had anticipated a long search. ‘’Ah know, but what if they’re in serious trouble and need help right now!?’’ ‘’Well if they’ve been here for two whole days, ah’m sure they’ll be able ta wait just a bit longer until we find them.’’ Applebloom sighed at her sister’s persistence on remaining calm; she had no choice but to trust her and follow her steps as they ventured further into the woods. As a way of passing time, she started looking at the details of the few things she could make out from the darkness. The drops of water dripping through the canopy as the weather above them raged on. Those very same drops falling into the mosses on the ground, splashing them and causing them to glow eerily from the soft lighting from the oil lantern. The lantern itself was a fine piece of hoofcraft. It was built so it would keep burning, even when it was raining outside. A suspended piece of cotton was hanging down into a small bowl, which was filled with oil. The metal casing around the bowl and cotton ran in a column-like shape, which was covered up at the top with a removable lid. The holes created by the metal structure were covered up with thin sheets of glass. It had taken an awful lot of time for Applejack to make it. Hoof crafting glass and metal caging was no easy job, but she had managed it. Now, she had finally gotten the opportunity to put it to good use. The filly became mesmerized by the flickering of the small flame, the way it bent with the lantern’s movement, the way it attracted moths and flies to come closer. A few of them found entry through the bottom, where a small hole for air-intake sat, only to find themselves burned up by the devouring flame. Then, a yell broke the silence which had been so persistent for some time now. ‘’Somepony help!’’ The scream seemed to have originated not too far from their current position, it had sounded quite close by, even. The trees made every sound echo however, making it hard to pinpoint an exact location. ‘’Anypony!’’ This time, they were prepared for the sound. They quickly turned into the direction from where the yell seemed to originate from and started making their way through the densely grown forest. No other yells came, but it wasn’t needed for them to find the source anymore, because after a short period of time, the two ponies found themselves at the edge of a clearing, watching a captivating sight. A little filly was limping around, grabbing whatever coverage she could find, before hopping back towards the middle, to put it down on top of what appeared to be just a heap of more leaves and the like. Applebloom was the first to dash into the open towards the other filly, calling out towards her with much relief emanating from her voice. ‘’SCOOTALOO!’’ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The orange filly quickly turned her head towards the yell, barely able to compose herself before a yellow blur bolted into her, causing them to drop onto the ground together. Thankfully, Scootaloo didn’t land on her bad shoulder, so it didn’t hurt as much as she was expecting. As her senses started working normally again, she could now see that the blur, which had just made her drop onto the ground, was none other than her best friend. The amount of joy she felt just from seeing her again was indescribable, if she would take every happy moment in her life and compared it to this, all of those memories paled. ‘’H-hey Applebloom. I guess you must’ve been wondering where I was all this time,’’ she managed to joke to her friend, with a grin on her face. ‘’Ah was so worried… Ah just knew something was wrong; and so ah came looking for ya with Applejack,’’ she said, nudging her head backwards a bit to indicate her sister’s presence. ‘’D-don’t you worry about me now, Applebloom. Please help Rainbow Dash out first, s-she is in a much worse state than me.’’ Applejack walked over to the small heap, which was covered with leaves, in the clearing, keeping her lantern in front of her at all times to avoid tripping over anything hazardous. As she got to the spot where the covered up mare was lying, she started to remove some of the leaves in order to assess the situation. When she removed the parts which were covering her wing, she was shocked by the sight of the heavily damaged feathery extension. It seemed to have popped from the joint it was supposed to fit in, as well as being broken on several places along the way to its tip. It was bent awkwardly onto the mare’s back, and streaks of crimson blood had coloured the once cyan feathers into a dark brown-purplish. Applejack quickly removed the remaining leaves, unveiling the broken hind leg in the process. With a quick gaze upon it, it seemed to not be in a state as bad as the wing. The bone appeared to have mostly stayed in place, but a large swelling was visible at the spot of the fracture. With no time to spare, the mare decided it would be best to simply carry the cyan pegasus to safety as fast as possible. With that in mind, she manoeuvred her head underneath the pony’s chest with some wiggling. She then pushed forward, causing the body to rest on her neck. By simply pulling herself up on her legs, she had hoisted her friend onto her back. As she looked back towards her little sister and Scootaloo, she noticed the latter was swaying from side to side ever so slightly, seemingly close to unable to keep herself standing straight. ‘’You j-just go and help your sister with R-Rainbow Dash first, Applebloom. I’ll just w-wait here for you to come back after bringing her to s-safety,’’ Scootaloo said with trembling voice. She found it was getting harder and harder for her to stay focused, as well as continuously having to adjust her own body to prevent it from toppling over again after getting up. ‘’That won’t do Scootaloo, ah’m not goin’ ta leave ya here. Y’all are coming with us, ah’ll bring ya home with me even if ah have ta………’’ The sound died out for Scootaloo. Even though she could still see her friend’s lips moving to articulate the words, she was unable to hear them. Shortly after, her vision started to become blurry, until there was barely any contrast left. All she could see was a big yellow flock, with the entire surrounding blacking out. It didn’t take much longer until she toppled over, falling onto the ground in front of Applebloom. She saw the blur moving around frantically, stopping in her tracks to try and lift her up. Then, when Scootaloo couldn’t make out any images anymore; and her eyelids became too heavy to keep them parted; everything blacked out. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was an annoying tingling sensation on her right front hoof. In a reflex, she attempted to make it go away by bringing its left counterpart over to touch it. As she tried to lift it however, there was a strange feeling which couldn’t be described other than a kind of numbness in the leg. It didn’t matter how hard she tried to get the limb to head her commands, it wouldn’t listen. It felt like there was nothing there. ‘’It is still there, right?’’ she suddenly thought, quickly parting her still closed eyelids in an attempt to find out. The sudden influx of bright light caused her to become momentarily blinded though; and made her quickly shut her eyelids tight again. ‘’Where am I? What’s with this bright lighting?’’ Thoughts started rushing through her mind. She felt like she needed to know where she was; and more importantly, why she was there in the first place. She appeared to be lying on a soft material, soft enough to cause her body to sink in to about half of the depth of it. On top of her lay some sort of foliage, it too felt soft to the touch. Her nostrils flared as she took a deep breath, trying to get an idea of her surrounding through smell. The air smelled like disinfectant, the type one could only seem to find in recently cleaned rooms, or inside a hospital. ‘’Hospital?!’’ The thought rushed through her mind as she put the pieces of the puzzle together. She quickly tried to open her eyes once more, only to have them being shut tight by her bodily reflex. She was determined to get answers though; and thus she kept exposing her irises to the blinding light until they finally started to adjust. Once they had adjusted enough for her to keep her eyelids parted, she began to peer around the room she was in. The walls were white, as were both the ceiling and the floor, though the floor was covered with ever swapping colours of tiles. It looked somewhat like a chessboard, with a black tile, then a white tile, then another black one and so on. She appeared to be the only person in the room, with the second bed, which was situated to the left of her own, being empty. It was supposedly there in case there were too many patients for each of them to have separate chambers, but that didn’t appear to be a problem right now. She let her gaze run through the entire room, absorbing every little detail she could find. There weren’t many, as the room was mostly plain white. There was one painting on the wall opposite of her bed though, but her vision was still a bit too blurry to be able to differentiate the entities painted onto it. Then, she shifted her vision towards the leg she had been trying to move earlier on. It was still there, much to her relief, but even with visual assistance, she couldn’t get it to move, not even an inch. Just as she started to panic from the strange sensation of seeing, commanding, but not responding, a voice broke her fixation. ‘’Ah, I see you’ve woken up,’’ a mare in white clothing said to her, as she entered the room through the -how could it have been different- white door. ‘’How are you doing then?’’ As the filly tried to reply, she couldn’t produce any sounds other than a few squeaks and hacking coughs. Only now had she realized how dry her throat was; and she figured the best way to let the mare know what she wanted, was to try to recreate a drinking motion with her, somewhat functioning, right front hoof. ‘’Ah, you must want something to drink, don’t you?’’ she said as she trotted over to a sink, which was attached to the wall to the right of the filly’s bed, and filled a cup with some water. She then walked over to the bed and offered it to her. Scootaloo happily accepted the offer, closing her lips around the edge of the cup as she tried to drink from it. The nurse slowly lowered the edge towards the filly, who thankfully started gulping the water down her throat. The feeling of the liquid moisturizing her gullet was more than welcome to her; and she soon found herself having drunk the entire content of the cup. ‘’T-thanks,’’ was all she managed to say to the mare in an extremely raspy voice, as if she hadn’t used her vocal cords for weeks. The nurse simply smiled in return, putting the cup back near the sink; then proceeding to head towards the exit. ‘’I’ll go and tell your friends you’ve woken up. If there’s anything else you need, you can press the yellow button on the nightstand next to your bed. I will be returning in a while as well, so you won’t have to worry about anything. It’ll all be taken care of.’’ And with that, she left through the door and turned right, starting to move down the, what Scootaloo presumed to be, hallway. She rested her head back on the soft pillow, before noticing the tingling sensation in her right leg once more. She looked down at it, noticing a small tube, covered up with bits of tape, running along the leg. It stopped right at the spot where the tingling feeling sat, so she assumed it was stuck into the leg with a small needle or such. The substance flowing through it was clear; and it moved slowly. It looked like water to the filly, but she knew that couldn’t possibly be the content of the liquid. If it would’ve been just water, they wouldn’t have had to put that through a drip. No, this had to be some kind of medicine being administered, even though she had no clue what for. Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard the sound of something small galloping at high speeds through the hallway. As the sound came closer, she recognized the rhythm. A yellow blur shot through the room, almost leaping through the air before landing on the bed. It then lunged forward and embraced the orange filly in a tight hug. ‘’OOF; Hey there, Applebloom.’’ ‘’Oh gosh Scootaloo, ah was worried sick about ya! Ah’ve been waiting here ever since ah brought ya in, ah couldn’t get maself ta leave without knowing whether ya would be okay or not!’’ ‘’Ever since you brought me in? Oh sheesh, how long have I been out?’’ the filly said with a hint of confusion in her voice. ‘’Almost five whole days, Scootaloo. At first the doctors weren’t even sure if ya would wake up anymore, ya had been badly dehydrated and famished, yer body seemed to be giving up. Ya somehow managed to pull through though.’’ Applebloom paused for a brief moment before bringing out her last few lines. ‘’Ah’m so glad ya did. Ah don’t know what ah would do if ya weren’t here anymore Scootaloo. Ah would be so lonely,’’ she said as she tightened her hug with the other filly. Scootaloo returned the hug with her functioning leg, wrapping it around the filly’s waist. She got caught up in the moment, slowly turning her head slightly in an affectionate nuzzle, causing Applebloom to flinch in surprise. ‘’S-sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you… It was an acidd-‘’ She was cut off from her words, as the yellow filly suddenly returned the gesture. They lay there, embracing one another, for what felt like an eternity. ‘’Ah’m sorry for runnin’ off when ya first told me, Scootaloo. Ah was afraid ah guess. Not afraid of you, but afraid of what others would think. Ah did some thinkin’ after that; and I made my decision a few days ago. Ah decided that ah really like ya too. Ah’m willing ta try; if ya want that as well.’’ Scootaloo lay there for a moment, still astonished by her friend’s revelation. For a short time, she couldn’t believe that Applebloom actually had similar feelings for her. A wide smile formed on the filly’s face as she nuzzled her friend once more, only wanting to hold her close; and never leave her side again. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ‘’Ahem’’ Scootaloo woke up to the same nurse who had administered the water to her earlier that day, as she made a few exaggerated coughs and the likes. At first the filly didn’t understand why she was doing so, not until she felt a weight pressing down on her chest. She could feel her cheeks burn and glow red as she looked downwards, where Applebloom was sleeping on her tummy. She quickly tried to wake her up; she didn’t want to keep the nurse waiting for… Whatever it was she wanted to do. ‘’Hey, Applebloom?’’ she said as she poked her with her right hoof, trying to wake her up gently. ‘’Time to wake up.’’ The yellow filly on her chest started to stir as she was being poked, slowly coming to terms with waking up; looking at Scootaloo when she opened her eyes. ‘’Scootaloo? Why are ya pokin’ me?’’ she said, then noticing the filly was gesturing towards something behind her. When she looked around and noticed the nurse, she too began to blush, quickly getting off of the bed and taking a little sidestep, creating a bit of space for the pony. ‘’Now then, with that cleared up, I’ll commence,’’ the mare said while looking at a piece of paper she had been holding in her hoof. She trotted over to the bed, grabbing a pencil from one of the pockets on her clothing. Without saying anything, she suddenly poked Scootaloo’s left leg several times with the pencil, moving up the entire length of the limb. ‘’Hey!? What are you doing that for?’’ ‘’Oh, I thought you would understand the procedure, my apologies. I’m trying to get a response from you whether you can feel the pokes or not. I should’ve probably mentioned that before starting… Anyway, can you tell me, then? She said as she poked the bottom of the hoof at first, moving up along the leg with a poke every few inches. ‘’No; nah ah; nope; hold on, I felt that one!’’ she said with an excited tone in her voice when the nurse had poked a spot not too far underneath her elbow. The mare dictated herself as she wrote down onto the piece of paper: ‘’Leg starting to regain sensitivity; now receptive for external impulses about an inch below elbow joint.’’ ‘’The medicine seems to be doing its job just fine. If your body keeps recovering at this rate, I daresay you’ll be out of here sometime next week. Now then, I’ll leave you two alone again,’’ she said with a slight smirk as she proceeded to exit the room, which was empty once again; except for the two fillies. ‘’Well, I guess that solves the mystery of the liquid in the tube,’’ Scootaloo said jokingly. ‘’I wonder how they came up with it though.’’ ‘’Well, when ah carried ya in here, ah told the doctors yer entire left side was very stiff. It was discoloured to a strange purplish colour back then as well. After they’d brought Rainbow Dash up to a surgery room, they went ta investigate that stiffness. Apparently ya had contracted a disease which was causing yer limbs ta ‘freeze’.’’ Upon hearing Applebloom talk about Rainbow Dash; and a surgery room even, Scootaloo’s mind was suddenly racing with all kinds of questions about her idol. ‘’Ohmygosh I totally forgot about Rainbow Dash, is she alright? Did they manage to fix her broken wing and leg? Where is she now? I’ve got to go see her! Can I go see her?’’ ‘’Whoa, just calm down Scootaloo, she’s goin’ ta be just fine. The doctors managed ta place the leg and wing back in their normal positions and put splints on both of them. She was suffering from a feverish kind of disease, but they administered her several medicines and she recovered for the most part. She’s currently being kept in an observatory room, just ta make sure nothing goes wrong. Her friends are with her there, so ya don’t have ta worry about her being lonely. Besides, ya aren’t in any condition ta walk right now,’’ Applebloom quickly said, trying to assure the orange filly that everything was going to be just fine. It seemed to have worked, as Scootaloo rested her head back down onto her pillow. She appeared to be thinking about something though, her eyes seemingly peering into the distance, even though a ceiling was blocking her view by hanging a few feet above her head. ‘’Applebloom?’’ ‘’What is it?’’ ‘’About yesterday…’’ ‘’yes?’’ ‘’Did you… Did you mean it? What you told me, I mean.’’ Applebloom smiled at the question posed by her friend. She walked over to the bed, hopping onto it. She then lay down, facing towards Scootaloo and looking into her eyes. ‘’Y’know; when ya first opened up ta me those few weeks ago, ah wasn’t so sure about what ta do. But ah did lots of thinking after that; and when ah had ta carry ya all the way here out of that forest, ah didn’t hesitate for a single moment. Ah couldn’t stand the thought of losing ya. When we hugged like we did yesterday, ah knew right then and there that ah had decided who ah really wanted ta be with, just like ya had in those weeks before. Ah ment every single word of what ah said; and ah’m happy ah said them.’’ During her talking, she had slowly inched herself closer towards Scootaloo, who was all too happy listening to her story. When she surprised her by suddenly leaning forward, pressing her lips onto the astonished filly’s; they would’ve been perfectly content with remaining in their state of bliss for as long as they were allowed to. This unfortunately made them end sooner than they would’ve wanted, as a pink pony came hopping into the room. Her mane was as puffed up as always, in the same light-pink colouring, making it look as if the pony had simply glued a ball of cotton candy onto her head. A large smile was covering most of her face, which was not a new thing for this particular pony. ‘’Good mooorniiing sleepyheads! I figured if the nurse had been by, you’d probably be awake, so I thought ‘’I should go see if she’s awake now’’ and so I went through the hallway on the bottom floor and then I had to go up the stairs and then through the other hallway-‘’ ‘’Pinkie…’’ ‘’-Where I had to start looking for the right room and there are -many- rooms here, did you know that? There are so many rooms that they can theororetitically keep every pony in Ponyville here! That’s a lot more rooms than Sugarcube Corner has! Even if it had there wouldn’t be enough cupcakes for everyone, because there are only a few ponies baking and -many- ponies eating. Then they wouldn’t have enough to eat so they would have to go away and- ‘’ ‘’PINKIE!’’ ‘’Huh? I was about to get to the part where I entered your room!’’ the pink pony replied with her oh so common oblivious attitude. ‘’That’s cool and all, but why don’t you skip the explanation part and simply talk about the ‘now’ instead? I’m sure the trip was very… interesting… but you can always tell me later!’’ ‘’Oh, well, I came by to check up on how you were doing. I knew you were going to be okay all along of course, but it was still a looong wait! So I spent some time with Rainbow Dash instead while you were still asleep, but she was asleep as well for the first two days so it turned out I could’ve waited anywhere. Applejack with her right now so I thought I’d come by and say hello to you! I came by earlier as well but I saw you were having a sleepover so I decided to come back later; and here I am!’’ Throughout her storytelling, Pinkie Pie had been bouncing through the room as if she were a skippy ball, shooting from one side to the other in one fluid motion while waving her hooves in the air to illustrate the story even further. The mentioning of the ‘sleepover’ made the two fillies blush slightly; knowing that the party pony was partially right. It was easier for Scootaloo to hide it, thanks to her darker shaded coat. It was not that simple for Applebloom though; and she had no other option than looking at the ground to avoid having Pinkie notice the faint red colouring on her cheeks. ‘’Hey, what are you looking at the floor for? Are the tiles dirty? Should I ask the nurse to call for a cleaning group? Oh I know, I’ll clean them up myself!’’ The mare stuck out her tongue while lowering her head, after which she pushed off with her hind legs, sliding herself forward through the room while her tongue was making contact with the tiles, functioning as a cleaning machine. It was a mystery how she was able to keep her tongue from drying up, but both of the fillies decided it was probably one of those things that Pinkie could do, but couldn’t be explained. Strangely enough, the floor did seem cleaner after the pink mare was done sliding across several times. It even had a slight sheen, but Applebloom couldn’t decide whether it was because they were clean, or because of a thin layer of saliva lying on top of it. Either way, she was a bit grossed out by the unusual cleaning method and tried to shake off the thought of having to walk on it sooner or later. ‘’Now that the floor is all clean, tell me about the sleepover! Was it fun? Did you play games all night and have a pillow fight and gave eachother makeovers and tell ghost stories and…’’ The two fillies slowly brought their hooves up onto their ears, covering them from Pinkie’s vocal rampage. It was of little help however, as the high-pitched voice penetrated almost all solid objects, including hooves. When the mare finally halted her relentless assault, she looked at Applebloom with a massive smile on her face, expecting an answer confirming her description of a fun sleepover. The yellow filly kept her muzzle shut tight however, as she didn’t know what to tell her. It didn’t take long for Scootaloo to notice and jump to her aid, quickly taking up the task of speaking for her. ‘’No Pinkie, we didn’t do all those things.’’ A loud gasp could be heard all the way through the hospital, indicating something had severely upset somepony. ‘’But… Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do at a sleepover? How can you possibly have fun if you don’t do all the fun things?’’ ‘’Well… We weren’t exactly having a sleepover.’’ The party pony raised an eyebrow for a moment as she moved her hoof to her chin as well, thinking about the filly’s statement. ‘’How can they not have a sleepover but still sleep over? There’s no way, right? If you sleep over at someone’s place, you’re having a sleepover. What am I missing? Unless…’’ Another loud gasp filled the building’s hallways, this time even being loud enough to make the nurse wonder if everything was okay. After peeking her head inside, she noticed Pinkie Pie was standing there, so she figured everything was normal. They had had several occasions where the pink pony had caused a massive uproar, where it would later turn out to be nothing dangerous. She suspected the same was the case right there as well; and thus she simply shook her head a little and moved on, closing the door first to stop the loud pony from harassing the entire hospital. ‘’A COUPLE!’’ Pinkie exclaimed with an even larger smile on her face. This time, it was a triumphant one, being extremely gleeful about solving the ‘mystery’. ‘’Umm… well… we aren’t really-‘’ ‘’Do you know what this calls for? A PARTY! Oh I know just the thing! I’ll throw a ‘Scootaloo-and-Applebloom-are-together-after-several-years-of-being-friends-and-now-they-are-more-than-friends-party’! It’ll be super duper and lots of fun and we’ll all have cake and pie and we’ll play games like truth or dare and we’ll eat pie and we’ll play all night and did I mention we’ll eat lots of pie?’’ Scootaloo was taken aback a little by the sudden outburst of plans from the pony, not really knowing what to tell her. She was still a bit uneasy about others finding out, even if it seemed to go well so far with neither Rainbow nor Pinkie making a big deal out of it. ‘’That sounds mightily fun Pinkie Pie, but ah’m afraid me and Scoot don’t have any time fer a party right now. We’d love ta join if we did, but unfortunately we don’t. And without the main guests, what fun is there in having a party, right?’’ ‘’Hmm…’’ the pink mare mumbled as she, once again, brought her hoof to her chin, this time she didn’t take half as long to think about it though; and she didn’t even seem taken aback in the slightest. ‘’Okay then. I suppose I’ll have to hold that Scootaloo-and-Applebloom-are-together-after-several-years-of-being-friends-and-now-they-are-more-than-friends-party some other time. Oh, I’m going to check up on Rainbow Dash! I’ll see you both later! Bye!’’ And with that, she was off and bouncing through the hallway, en route to Rainbow’s room, leaving the two fillies alone in the room once again, leaving behind the questions that accompanied the thoughts of revealing what now, after Pinkie Pie’s outburst, seemed to be a pretty official relationship. ‘’We won’t be able to hide it from everyone forever, what if the wrong ponies find out? I don’t even want to think about what Diamond Tiara would do if she found out. We’d be bullied for the rest of our time here in Ponyville for sure. And I don’t think Applebloom is comfortable confessing something like this to her older sister. If we just kept it hidden for now, we won’t have much trouble with it anyway.’’ ‘’Ah know there will be ponies disagreein’ with us two being together, but am ah ready ta reveal it ta everypony close to us? Ah know ma big sis’ doesn’t mind, but what about Rainbow Dash? Ah don’t think Scoot will be comfortable revealin’ this to her. We should probably try to not mention it to everypony at first, it would make everythin’ a lot easier fer us.’’ As they both lay there, lost in their thoughts, their eyes met. It was almost as if they could read each other’s minds, silently agreeing with one another as if they had spoken a thousand words. ‘’Umm… Ah should be headin’ home fer the evening ah suppose. Ah’ll come back tomorrow again, okay?’’ Applebloom said as she had glanced out of the window to see that the dusk had started to set in. ‘’Ah’m sure ya can go without me one night.’’ She added to it, as she tried to point out the idea that she wouldn’t be gone for long after noticing the mood of filly in front of her changed after saying she had to leave. ‘’Yeah… that should be no problem… no problem at all…’’ Scootaloo replied as the yellow filly leaned in for a hug. Her voice lacked any sign that would show she ment it. Because she wasn’t sure about it. Because she wasn’t sure if it would be no problem at all. As Applebloom left the room, the closing door gave the orange filly a weird feeling of finality.