//------------------------------//
// A filly's risk 
// Story: Familial bonds: part one 
// by Darling Dearest 
//------------------------------//

Scootaloo had spent her morning, and the vast majority of her afternoon, with her friends. They had counselled many ponies to help them resolve their cutie mark issues. However, they had no more appointments planned for the day and thus went their separate ways. Apple Bloom was to go on a day trip with her older brother Big Macintosh, and Sweetie Belle had come down with a sudden fever and thus had to rest. This left Scootaloo alone. She decided that this would be a good time to practice her flying, being very self-conscious about the fact that she couldn’t fly at her age, she often pushed herself to harm on numerous occasions. Though Rainbow Dash was often there to assist and train her, and to hold her back to stop her from hurting herself, this wasn’t one of those occasions. She stood on top of a small cliff that looked over the town of Ponyville, she intended to gracefully glide over the town and land safely in the centre of it. However, the last two times she had attempted this had ended with her only managing a few feet, before falling rapidly to the ground and injuring herself.

“Third time’s the charm.” She thought to herself, her nerves being completely supressed by her sheer desire to fly.

She was about to jump before an unfamiliar voice distracted her.

“Hey there, you’re Scootaloo right?”

Scootaloo turned around to see a dark red Pegasus stallion with a golden mane and a lightning bolt for his cutie mark.

“Yeah, I’m her, what’s it to ya?”

“My name’s Scarlet Speeder, I’m the fastest young flyer in the Cloudsdale flight school, but my parents have to be here for a little while on business and so I’m gonna be here over the holidays. But, that’s not important. I keep hearing about this awesome orange mare named Scootaloo who’s a bad flank on a scooter. Now, I don’t consider myself a sceptic or nothin’, but when I heard about you, I just knew I had to see if what I was hearing was true. So Scootaloo. I challenge you to a friendly competition, three races, biggest hills in this town, first to two wins is the victor, you in?”

Scootaloo was thrilled at the possibility of a competition, no pony in Ponyville was as good at stunts as her and thus could never really test herself. She also liked that the stallion had called her a mare and not a filly, it made her feel grown up.

“You bet I’m in, just don’t get too humiliated when I beat you.”

“Ha, we’ll see about that! Say, you’re quite a bit smaller than I had imagined, and I wouldn’t want to get any little fillies hurt. Um, how old are you?”

 “Th…Th… Thirteen, I’m Thirteen years old”

“Ah, good. I’m fourteen myself, don’t worry, you should hit your growth spurt soon and look your age. Anyway, what hills should we do, I’m new here and I don’t know the best slopes yet.”

Scootaloo pointed to three hills that stood next to each other in the distance, the peak of the tallest hill was almost covered by the clouds.

“It’s settled then, meet me at the top of the smallest one in twenty minutes and prepare to lose!”

“You’re delusional if you think your gonna beat me big shot.”

“Del… what now?” The stallion asked with a confused look on his face.

“Oh, never mind, just go get ready.”

“Ha, see ya soon kiddo.”

The stallion flew off into the distance within a matter of seconds, whilst nothing in comparison to Rainbow Dash, his speed was still very impressive for a pony his age. Scootaloo just stood there, feeling very excited, but also a little nervous. She had lied about her age, in reality she was a mere eight years old and was surprised that the stallion hadn’t called her bluff, though he didn’t seem overly intelligent. However, that still didn’t change the fact that she still was very young and was putting her tiny body at a lot of risk by accepting this challenge. if she fell, especially on that last hill, she would be critically injured. She thought about this dilemma for a few seconds, but ultimately concluded that she would be fine, she knew what she was doing and, though she had never actually gone down the biggest hill before, she decided that it would be no different to what she normally did, just a little longer and a lot more exiting. She ran as quickly as she could to pick up her riding gear. So that she could to prover herself against the older stallion.