First Day in Spring
The first morning of spring dawned, casting light through the open windows of the cloud home above Ponyville. Rainbow Dash rolled over, not yet ready to greet the coming day. She mumbled in her sleep, attempting to ignore her natural alarm clock.
The light intensified over time and eventually she was forced to rise. She yawned, squinting in the bright morning light.
Something dawned on her. She wasn’t cold.
She sat there for at least a minute, registering the thought.
“That’s right,” she said slowly, “It’s Spring!” She hopped out of bed and trotted into the hall, past the small bed where the dark green form of Tank still slept, hidden within his shell.
Once in the kitchen she prepared breakfast for herself. Cereal and eggs, perfect for an athlete. She ate quickly and once ready, headed out the door. She had spent all of last night thinking over it. She wanted to put the whole Scootaloo incident behind her, and to do that she needed to resume her regular routine.
She crouched, and readied herself. Then, with a giant leap she launched off of her cloud home and plummeted towards the earth below. The ground rushed up, 300 feet, 200, 150, 100, 50. She pulled up at the last second and pulled off a spectacular flip.
“Oh yeah!” The blue pegasus cried into the open air, “I’m feelin’ good today!”
---
The same sun that woke Rainbow Dash, also worked its way into Scootaloo’s room. She submitted to its will far sooner, and was in the kitchen before Fluttershy was even stirring. She ate quickly, left food out for Angel, and headed out the door. She considered feeding the animals for today, but decided to let Fluttershy deal with them, it was her special thing to do anyway.
Around the back of the house, near the chicken coop lay her scooter. It was newly thawed in the spring sun.
“Well well, look who’s finally showed up. I thought I lost you.” She said to the inanimate object.
She had left it outside during the first snowstorm, and by the time she thought to go get it, it was too late. The red scooter had been buried under the white layers and frozen into the pack ice.
She gave her transportation a once-over before mounting and buzzing her wings. Only to find that they wouldn’t move fast enough.
She got off and looked over her shoulder. The filly had done some real growing over the winter, and where there had once been tiny excuses for wings, were now nearly full grown, or they looked full grown on her small frame anyway.
The orange filly flapped her wings and felt the gust of air rush forward.
She grinned. She had noticed the growth, but hadn’t realized just how much of an impact the change in size had. In moments she was back on the scooter, and with a powerful thrust of her wings she rocketed forward.
“This…” she began as the wind whipped at her face, “Is awesome!”
The orange and purple form zoomed down the path to town, a huge smile plastered across her face.
---
Shops were opening just in time for the two Pegasus heading to town that morning. Mrs.Cake was outside of Sugarcube Corner, placing an ‘open’ sign in the window and cleaning the frosting off of the wall from an incident the day prior, Bon Bon was also opening the doors of her shop, Bon Bon’s Bonbons. Quills and Sofas was open 24/7, so of course it was ready for business, and the library was also open to any potential book borrowers, not that many ponies checked any books out.
Scoots made it to town faster than she ever had before. Her wings were amazing, they felt elegant, they felt powerful, this was a new world of feeling for the young pony.
I wonder if they’re strong enough to learn to fly? she thought as she made her way into the quiet hamlet of a town. She slowed herself with a single backwards flap and continued at a much slower pace.
I was great to be back in town after so long. She hadn’t seen the place in a whole season, not that it changed all that much, but she still missed tromping around it.
Suddenly, she stopped in the middle of the road, eyes flitting between two buildings. She had reached a dilemma. One that everypony in the town faced from time to time.
Which sweet shop to eat at.
Now, in Ponyville there were two places to sate you sweet tooth. You could go to Sugarcube Corner, and get some of the greatest baked goods in the land, or you could buy from Bon Bon’s Bonbons, and get some amazing chocolates and taffy.
She pondered this for quite some time before making her usual choice and entering the gingerbread house of Sugarcube Corner.
Once inside, she was greeted by a rush of pink, and an excited, bubbly voice.
“HI SCOOTALOO!” Pinkie Pie was mere inches away from the filly, with a smile that was physically impossible for anypony to actually be able to pull off, but Pinkie wasn’t one to pay attention to physics.
“Hi Pinkie,” Scootaloo responded, slightly meekly. She had forgot to properly prepare herself for the likely chance of a Pinkie Pie assult.
“SO!” Pinkie began, opting to bring her volume down just a little, “What can I get ya? I’ve got cupcakes, and normal cakes, and muffins, and brownies, and cookies, and toffies, and turnovers, and…” the list went on for quite some time. Scootaloo listened to Pinkie list off the shop’s entire inventory, and as she did she noticed a strange smell.
“Uh… Pinkie?”
“And biscotti, and alligator food, and… Yes Scootaloo?”
Scootaloo pointed towards the kitchen with a hoof.
“I think something’s burning.”
She was right. Caught up in her exuberant listing of tasty treats, Pinkie had forgotten to check on the batch of cupcakes currently in the oven.
Pinkie dashed back into the kitchen and Scoots followed close behind. The oven door opened and released a puff of smoke along with the smell of burnt cupcakes.
Scootaloo coughed, Pinkie giggled like a madpony.
“Oh, they’re not that bad!” Pinkie grabbed one of the many blackened lumps and popped it into her mouth. The sound of her biting down was something akin to the sound of rock cracking. She chewed happily on the lump that would have likely shattered any other pony’s teeth.
Scootaloo rolled her eyes.
“So.” Pinkie said, liking her lips to clean off the burnt crumbs and turning back to the filly, “What can I get you?”
“Well, I was in the mood for a cupcake, but a guess I’ll have to make due with a brownie instead.”
“Okie dokie lokie.” Pinkie Pie hopped back into the main room of the confectionary and quickly bagged a rather large, and extremely fudgy brownie for the filly.
“So how was your winter?” Pinkie asked as she placed the four bits Scoots had given her into the cash register.
“Great!” Scootaloo chimed from around the chocolaty treat in her mouth. She swallowed. “I was living with Fluttershy!”
“OOH! That sounds fun! … well everything sounds fun to me, but still, that still sounds like it’d be a whole lot of fun to get to spend all that time with…” Another Pinkie rant began, this time talking about all the fun things she’d do with Fluttershy if they spent the winter together, Scootaloo chewed on her treat and idly listened, wondering how the pink mare could talk so much all the time. It was quite a shift after spending all her time around such a quiet pony, to have Pinkie's voice assulting her ears.
---
Dash’s flight to town was very enjoyable. The warm spring air felt amazing in her wings. She decided to get her weather duties taken care of as soon as she could so that she could focus on enjoying the rest of the day.
She set to work, and in moments the clouds were bunched together into one raincloud which she herded over to one of the further edges of Sweet Apple Acres, then let loose the torrent of water contained within.
Satisfied with her work, she headed back to town. She was hungry for a cupcake, and she knew just where to find one.