//------------------------------// // 18 - Left Behind // Story: Soaring on Little Wings // by tom117z //------------------------------// “Look at it everypony!” Silver Breeze boasted joyfully, practically prancing out of the school. “Isn’t my cutie mark just the best?” The pegasus colt was showing off to anypony who would even shed a glance in his direction, his buddies whooping and cheering to his newly recognised special talent. The brand new image of three silver tinted feathers floating in the breeze adorned both sides of his flank, his cutie mark having appeared but hours earlier. He hadn’t stopped gushing about his achievement since then, not unlike most colts and fillies gaining their marks, and continued to do so even as the school day ended as the children departed through the school’s front doors. He saw two particular fillies exiting the school while trying extremely hard to ignore him, a slight smirk befalling his muzzle as he singled out the member of the duo yet to gain a cutie mark. “Well, what do you think, Little Wing?” Silver Breeze jeered. “Seems I got mine first after all. Always knew you’d be last!” “I’m starting to regret NOT hitting him four years ago…” the now eight-year-old Little Wing muttered to herself, before saying back to Silver Breeze in a not at all sarcastic voice: “That’s nice.” “Hey, not my fault you’ve been left behind,” Silver Breeze rebutted. “Maybe you should try helping out the janitors, you might get a toilet cleaning cutie mark.” Little Wing wondered what cutie mark she’d get for introducing Silver Breeze’s face to said toilet. “Go away Silver!” Misty Gust shouted at the colt. “Haven’t you got something better to do?” Silver Breeze huffed. “I suppose I have. Got a big old party to plan, I might invite you if I’m feeling generous.” “One, that means it’s never going to happen,” Little Wing deadpanned. “Two, we wouldn’t come even if you begged us.” “Pfft, your loss,” Silver Breeze snorted, before trotting off towards where his own parents laid in wait to congratulate their son. Little Wing groaned, stopping in the courtyard alongside Misty. “He can’t help but boast, can he?” “You know what he’s like,” Misty stated. “But it’s all bark and no bite, you know that.” “Yeah, maybe,” Little Wing responded without much enthusiasm. “But he wasn’t all that wrong either.” “What do you mean?” Little Wing pointed to the cutie mark sitting on Misty Gust’s own flank, her best friend having achieved it a little less than two full days before. The cutie mark depicted some kind of bird riding majestically along a gust of wind, wings spread wide as it flew to an unknown destination. Little Wing caught herself staring at her friend’s cutie mark, flinching guiltily as she internally wished the mark was on her own flank instead of Misty’s. She quickly banished that selfish thought, it represented what made Misty a special pony and nopony else. She had no right to wish something like that. Misty Gust didn’t notice that, looking back at her own mark before noting Little Wing’s still blank flank. She could tell it was bothering her friend at least a little, and so tried to impart some words of comfort to the blue filly. “Who cares if you haven’t gotten yours yet?” Misty asked encouragingly. “It just means you have a lot of options open to you.” “But everypony else in class has gotten one but me,” Little Wing proclaimed, resisting the urge to bury her head in the clouds beneath her hooves. “Not everypony,” Misty Gust corrected. “You might not be dead last…” “Ughhhhhhhh,” Little Wing moaned, finally failing to resist the head burying temptation and doing just that. “Everypony gets theirs eventually, the teacher said so,” Misty reminded her friend. “And I don’t think it’s going to be a toilet mark. Yours will probably be super awesome!” “Imf itsas awsum asyers idbe apy,” came the muffled replied beneath the cloud layer. “Uh… what was that?” Misty asked for clarification. “I couldn’t catch that because of, you know… the cloud.” Little Wing extracted her head from the ground with a cartoonish pop, shaking her head to rid herself of a few white fluffy bits of condensed water vapour. With her head no longer literally being in the clouds, she was able to answer far more coherently than before. “I said,” Little Wing began again. “If it’s as awesome as yours then I would be happy.” Misty Gust couldn’t help but blush at the compliment. “Well… mine is pretty cool I guess…” “You kidding?” Little Wing asked incredulously. “Yours is a free bird flying anywhere she wants to fly! That’s pretty darn cool if you ask me, just like you!” Misty blushed even deeper. “Uh, t-thanks.” Little Wing sighed, then crossing her hooves in a slight grump. “I just wish mine would hurry the hay up already. I wonder if there’s a spell to make it hurry up? My sister is close to one of the princesses…” “Bad idea,” Misty instantly refuted. “I can’t see that going anywhere but wrong.” Little Wing shrugged. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Still…” “Hey, it will be worth waiting for!” Misty proclaimed, bouncing once in place. “I bet it will be a mighty Wonderbolt riding into battle on a dinosaur! Wouldn’t that be neat?” Little Wing laughed. “Even I am able to see something that’s complete overkill, Misty.” “Yeah, it is a little much,” the filly admitted. “Well if you’re going for awesome, why not a mark of Rainbow Dash.” “Too creepy,” Little Wing rebutted. “I love Dash, but who would want their big sister on their flank twenty-four hours a day?” “Point in hoof,” Misty Gust conceded. “Hm, I did read something once about being able to predict a cutie mark…” “And I bet it’s wrong all but a single time,” Little Wing stated. “Those things are scams, trust me,” a third, and older, voice stated as an orange pegasus trotted up to the two fillies. “Hey, Little Wing, ready to move out?” The two fillies looked up at Scootaloo as she came to a stop, a bright smile on the twenty-year-old pegasi’s face. Scootaloo was completely adorned in a Wonderbolt trainee’s uniform, goggles sitting atop her head as proud as her grin. “Hey Little Wing, you didn’t say that Scootaloo was going to be here,” Misty said questioningly to her friend. “What gives?” “Oh, yeah I should have said something,” Little Wing apologised. “Scootaloo is taking us back to the house.” “I noticed that now,” Misty deadpanned. “I was trying out for the Wonderbolt reserves,” Scootaloo explained. “So Little Wing’s folks asked me to take you back to the house for your weekend long playdate or whatever you’re doing together.” Misty Gust gasped. “You’re training with the Wonderbolts!?” “Well, yeah. You think the costume was practice for Nightmare Night?” Scootaloo snarked. “Now that I’ve passed the written exam, I just need to impress the rest of the main Wonderbolts enough for them to put me in the reserves.” “Aw, they should just put you straight on the main team,” Little Wing said. Scootaloo chuckled, ruffling Little Wing’s mane. “I’d have to wait for a spot to open up, and even then I’d have to be at the top of the list.” “Well, that’s stupid.” “It’s just how things go in the Wonderbolts, Wing,” Scootaloo stated. “Now come on you two, before your parents think we got lost or something.” Making sure the two fillies had fallen into step alongside her, Scootaloo opened up her wings and took to the skies. Little Wing and Misty Gust dutifully followed closely, each one flying to opposite sides of the Wonderbolt hopeful. The school very quickly disappeared into the distance behind them, the trio making good progress towards their destination. The first few minutes were spent mostly in silence, but the eldest of the three couldn’t contain her curiosity as to what the younger two had been talking about when she had encountered them by the school’s entrance. “So… what were you two talking about?” Scootaloo enquired. “When I ran into you, I mean. Something about cutie marks?” “Oh, Silver Breeze got his cutie mark,” Little Wing explained with a shrug. “He was bragging about it.” “I have yet to encounter a foal who doesn’t,” Scootaloo said with a smirk. “A crime which I myself am a little guilty I must admit.” “We thought so,” Little Wing responded. “But he was being a jerk about it.” “With what I know of the colt, I can’t say I’m surprised,” Scootaloo stated. “Was that all you talked about, I also heard something about books and those hacks claiming to be able to predict your cutie mark.” “Isn’t that what you do?” Misty asked innocently. “Not at all!” Scootaloo protested. “Me and my friends help ponies find their own marks, but it’s not like we know what it’s going to be ourselves.” “Oh. Sorry.” “Yeah, it’s cool,” Scootaloo assured. “So…?” “We were just talking about what my cutie mark might be,” Little Wing explained. “…Is there a spell to hurry it up?” Misty facehooved. Scootaloo just laughed to herself, shooting Little Wing a glance mixed with both amusement and warning. “I wouldn’t try it if I were you. Apple Bloom did once, it did not go well. She started speaking fancy.” “Huh?” “Long story,” Scootaloo dismissed. “But… did I ever tell you exactly what we did to get out cutie marks.” Little Wing shrugged. “I don’t know, a little bit I think. Your mark is nearly the same of Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle’s, and you help ponies find their own special talents.” “Yup,” Scootaloo confirmed. “Thing is, we spent so many years trying to find out our own talents that it took all that time for us to try helping others find theirs.” “How long?” Misty Gust enquired curiously. “We got ours when we were ten,” Scootaloo responded. “Only two years before the both of you came along.” “When you were ten!?” Little Wing exclaimed. “Most of our class have them now!” Scootaloo nodded. “Yeah, it was the same with our classmates in Ponyville. Most of the fillies and colts got their marks when they were just eight years old, the same age as you guys are now. Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, Twist… all of them. We were some of the ones who got left behind for a while.” “How did you get by that?” Little Wing asked. “Not getting your marks while everypony else did, I mean.” “We formed the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” Scootaloo exclaimed, her eyes almost glazing over as she recalled memories extremely close to her heart. “We tried everything we could think of to get our cutie marks to appear. And to be honest, it became less about the cutie marks over time and more about spending time with the two best friends a pony could hope to have. When we did get the marks, well that was an extremely sweet bonus.” “So how did it happen?” Misty Gust asked. “We helped a pony who we used to think of as our greatest enemy,” Scootaloo stated. “Diamond Tiara, who is now a close friend. We helped her stand up to her domineering mother and realise the full potential of her cutie mark, to realise her true purpose in life. With that, our own marks appeared.” “Oh, that sounds cool!” “It was,” Scootaloo confirmed. “Very cool. And who knows, maybe something similar will happen with Silver Breeze?” Little Wing stuck out her tongue in disgust. “Yeah, I doubt it.” Little Wing’s house came into sight, Scootaloo leading the way as they began to descend down onto the home. “You never know, but on the flip side you may not be wrong,” Scootaloo admitted “Everypony is different, in the same way that everypony gets their cutie marks differently. “Unless you’re a Cutie Mark Crusader,” Little Wing pointed out. Scootaloo smirked. “We’re a joint package.” “Uh-huh.” “Point is,” Scootaloo continued just as the trio touched down just outside of the house. “Your cutie mark will come to you eventually, in its own time and in its own way.” “Promise?” Little Wing said. Scootaloo nodded adamantly. “Promise. But… if things do start to take too long me and my friends are quite good at this sort of thing.” Little Wing smiled. “I’ll remember that.” “Good,” Scootaloo stated. “Now, before we got in there was one more thing I needed to say to you.” Little Wing tilted her head in curiosity. “There is? What is it?” “Next weekend, Rainbow Dash will be taking you down to Ponyville to stay a couple days,” Scootaloo informed the filly. “I should be getting confirmation of whether I got in the reserves or not by then, so we thought you’d like to be around for it.” Little Wing lit up, nodding ecstatically. “Yes! Yes! I know you will definitely get in!” “I appreciate the confidence you have in me,” Scootaloo responded with a bright smile of her own. “Now come on, let’s go inside. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to your mother’s cooking.” Neither Little Wing nor Misty Gust could refute that point, so the trio opened up the front door and entered the household with the fillies ready to enjoy a fun-filled weekend together. The following weekend would be no less, if even more, interesting. Scootaloo’s whole future was to be decided, and Little Wing was extremely eager to know the outcome for the pony who was like a second sister in many ways. One way or the other.