My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talkin' 'fore I knew it, and as he grew
He'd say "I'm gonna be like you, Dad
You know I'm gonna be like you"
And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home, Dad
I don't know when, but we'll get together then
You know we'll have a good time then
My son turned ten just the other day
He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw", I said "Not today
I got a lot to do", he said, "That's ok"
And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him"
Cat’s in the Cradle: Harry Chapin: Verities & Balderdash: 1974
Fluttershy’s Cottage:
Fluttershy paced back and forth in place in front of her door, her mind filled with the seeds of worry. She’d been like this for hours, even since Scootaloo had stormed off. It was a cold night out, and Scootaloo had ran off to Celestia only knew where. Fluttershy let out a small little whimper at the possibility of the Royal Guard turning up on her doorstep with that look on their muzzles saying they’d found her daughter’s body, -After all she and Scootaloo had been through together in the past several months, the buttercream pegasus could think of her wife’s child as nothing else but her own as well- and only their sympathies to offer.
Then there came a knock on the door. Fluttershy froze in place, and steadied herself for what was to come, before she slowly walked up to the door and opened it.
But lay behind it was not who the worried young pegasus was expecting. Far from it, actually.
“Scootaloo!” Fluttershy shouted, tears of joy coming to her eyes, as her daughter rushed into her awaiting arms. Gilda stood proudly, a scarf around her neck. “Oh thank Celestia… I was so worried… You don’t want to know how many things I thought could have happened to you…” Fluttershy whispered as she nuzzled her young charge affectionately.
“Hey, I’m here now, aren’t I?” Scootaloo asked casually, brushing everything off like it was absolutely nothing to worry about at all. Fluttershy smiled, so much like her mother. She held her real feelings up inside till she wasn’t in public. Inwardly, she knew Scootaloo was just as relieved to see her mother as her mom was to see her. “So, everything’s cool right?” she joked weakly.
Fluttershy winced.
“Oh… Heh, wrong choice of words… Sorry,” Scootaloo laughed nervously. “Really bad choice of words…”
Behind her, Gilda was giving her a “You think, kiddo?” look.
“So… So, where did you go?” Fluttershy asked.
“Found her in the old Clubhouse, crying her eyes out,” Gilda replied. “She was in quite the state, if I’m to be honest with you. Really broken up.”
Fluttershy whispered: “Thank you, thank you…” to Gilda over and over, and the griffon actually blushed and rubbed the back of her head really not quite sure how to take that.
“Well, you going to stand there and let me shiver, or invite me in and shut the door?” Gilda asked jokingly.
“Who said you needed an invitation?” Fluttershy asked weakly as she gestured for the griffon to step inside. Gilda smiled, and used one of her wings to pull the door shut behind her. “Here, I’ll make us some tea.”
“No, no thanks,” Gilda said. “I don’t really plan on staying long, I got a very worried marefriend waiting on me back at the local inn.”
“No, I insist,” Fluttershy stated. “Besides, I have a few apologies to make, really.”
“Apologies, what for?” Gilda asked quizzically, an eyebrow raised. Honestly, she was confused. She thought she and Fluttershy had buried the hatchet soon as she’d fixed things up with her wife back in Griffonstone. That was enough for her, wasn’t it? Knowing that Gilda really didn’t know how to interact with ponies. That had to be enough for Fluttershy, right?
“For… For well everything, really,” Fluttershy replied as she trotted towards the kitchen with Gilda following. “Honestly, I’ve… I’ve never quite really forgiven you for the things you did, how you hurt my wife a couple years back. Breaking off her friendship like that and the way you treated her friends and me, really hurt her.”
“Didn’t you send me to your parents' house to ward off reporters not too long ago, unless my memory is mistaken?” Gilda replied. “No offense, but your parents are even worse than you in the assertiveness department. One roar from me, they’d be sent running along with the reporters. Not a very effective tactic I’d say, if that would be the end result. Scare off the ponies you’re trying to protect. I’d say you sending me there as their personal bodyguard shows quite a bit of trust on your part, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe,” Fluttershy remarked as she readed a pot of late-night tea. “But still! I… I always thought of you for the longest time as a bully, and I never got the chance to apologize for that, even long after I’d seen that you weren’t one. Just somegriffon who needed help, but nopony was kind enough to listen…” Fluttershy whispered, a trace of guilt in her tone.
“Hey, no way you could have known man,” Gilda replied while waving a paw dismissively, in that cool and casual demeanor of hers. As if all of this was no big deal to her. “Honestly, I didn’t really help matters much for myself, blowing up at you and Dash like that, making a show of myself in front of your friends. Sure, I didn’t really know how to interact amongst you ponies, but still hardly an excuse really. I was a bitch, and no need to correct me on my language as we both know it’s true.”
Fluttershy raised a hoof to do just that, but then lowered it right as the tea kettle whistled. “Yeah… Suppose you’re right about that...” she murmured to herself as she continued prepping the tea.
“I’m surprised you’re even willing to talk to me, after all the crap I’ve pulled with you and your friends,” Gilda muttered to herself in a tone that held traces of self-disgust. “I was a bully, simply put! So… So why aren’t you afraid of me?”
“Honestly, probably because I’ve grown up over the years, just like you have. Besides, you? You’re nothing compared to what, and who I’ve dealt with since our first meeting,” Fluttershy told her with a small smile.
“Yeah,” Gilda chuckled as she took a sip of the tea and grimaced. Needed more sugar, this blend. “I mean, the Spirit of Chaos himself, and you befriended and helped reform him? That’s… That’s seriously cool man!” she continued, more than a trace of respect in her tone for the normally reserved pegasus.
“Yeah… Yeah, I guess it is…” Fluttershy whispered to herself before she took a sip of her own tea.
“Dude, you’re seriously underplaying your heroics!” Gilda phrased. “I mean, what if you’d failed? Discord -Celestia, sure don’t hope he even shows by me merely mentioning his name- would have been free to cause his signature brand of chaos again, completely unrestrained!”
Gilda, with more than a trace of fear, took a quick look around the room, just to make sure the Chaos Spirit wasn’t anywhere near. She sighed in relief when she saw he wasn’t. Fluttershy, in the past, admitted to herself she would have smirked in satisfaction upon seeing the griffon so afraid of something, but not now. It just seemed… wrong, after all they’d been through together and after Gilda’s confession.
Fluttershy put a comforting hoof on Gilda’s shoulder. “Hey, to him, any friend of mine is a friend of his. Like you said, I have him completely under control,” she reassured. “Long as you don’t cause trouble again, he won’t do a thing to you. Pinkie Promise.”
Gilda sighed in relief and wiped the sweat from her brow, before she realized something.
“Hey, where’s the kiddo?” she asked, before she followed Fluttershy’s gazed and let out a soft “Awww…” as she saw Scootaloo snuggling herself up to her mother and nuzzling into her mane, holding her tightly.
“You think they’ll be alright?” Fluttershy asked in concern.
“Oh, I know they will. Families may fight, but in the end, they forgive each other don’t they?” Gilda asked with a soft smile as she pulled the covers back up over both of the sleeping pegasi. As she did so, she was reminded of an old song she’d heard on the radio once and began to hum it.
“And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
“When you coming home, son?” “I don't know when
But we'll get together then, dad
We're gonna have a good time then…” She sang with a small smile before kissing her newfound niece’s forehead.
Cloudsdale: Wonderbolts Academy:
Rainbow, with a reinvigorated smile on her face, touched down on the main landing strip at the Academy. Heading to the locker rooms, she found her uniform and pulled it out. Quickly throwing it on, she zipped it up and pulled her flight goggles down over her face.
While she did this, she thought back to earlier this morning…
“Squirt…?” Rainbow asked, as her cerise eyes -Widened in considerable shock- gazed in her daughter’s purple orbs. “Wha...What are you doing here?” she asked groggily.
“Spending time with you,” Scootaloo said. “What does it look like?”
“But… But I thought you hated me…” Rainbow whispered as her still half-asleep brain tried to comprehend this new information.
“Oh, I’m still a bit ticked off with you, make no mistake about that,” Scootaloo clarified as she got up off the couch, with Rainbow following. “But the way I see it, we need each other, don’t we? Far too alike to just not stick together.”
“Where’d you hear that one? Because by Celestia, it sounds cheesy. You haven’t been dipping into Fluttershy’s dime-store romance novels have you?” Rainbow remarked in a slightly joking tone before it became stern. “Please tell me you haven’t, half of the stuff in those books you shouldn’t be reading about anyways…”
Scootaloo made a face of disgust. “Please, that stuff is way too mushy for my tastes. Auntie Gilda may have sorta gave me a good hard talking to last night, that’s where I got that.”
“Wait, Auntie Gilda?” Rainbow asked in surprise, her eyes blinking. She swore she could have misheard.
“Yeah, we may have… Talked about a few things, and she gave me a few hard truths. Ended up seeing her as an adoptive aunt. Can’t really call her Grandma Gilda, she’s much too young for that really.”
“Well, if my mom and her have their way, you probably will be soon enough…” Rainbow muttered, still incredibly weirded out that her childhood friend and her own mom were dating.
“True…” Scootaloo muttered. “Still, I have to wonder, if you just dropped me on Icy Wind’s doorstep -Still haven’t forgiven you for that by the way, and I probably never entirely will- how’d she know I was your daughter?”
“Well, like you said, we’re too far alike for anypony with a brain to wonder if we’re not related in some way,” Rainbow explained, wincing slightly at the bitter tone in her daughter’s voice even if she knew she deserved a few stinging remarks here and there. “Plus… Birth records are fairly easy enough to find if you’re a smart enough mare and know where to look…”
“Yeah, guess so…”
Rainbow found herself snapped back to the present by her commander’s voice.
“Well, you seem to have an extra spring in your step today Crash,” Spitfire remarked. “Have a good night?” she teased, wiggling her eyebrows slightly. Rainbow groaned, her commander -Although she wouldn’t trade her in for anypony else in the world- could be such a pain in the flank at times.
“Hardly, the aftermath of that damn trial and all…” Rainbow muttered as she walked back outside alongside her commander. Spitfire winced.
“Yeah, saw the entire thing in the papers,” she replied. “Nasty piece of work. That bitch of a mother you dropped your child off with… Brings a disgrace to the pegasi name really. Actually, I want to talk with you about your daughter. I know I’m not one to normally inquire in my team’s personal lives, as that’s their own business and not mine, but I am a bit concerned...”
“Yeah, you and about half the team really,” Rainbow muttered in distaste. “Earlier today, had Fleetfoot and Misty Fly butting their noses in about why I exactly left my own daughter on somebody’s doorstep. Bad enough Scoots is angry with me about it, but-”
“And she has every right to be, along with the rest of us. What you did… Hard to look over. But that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about. It’s something I noticed when I was at your in-laws' home. Her wings, Scootaloo seems awfully underdeveloped for her age…”
“Eh, maybe she’s just a late bloomer. You were, remember?” Rainbow reminded, having grown up near Spitfire and even went to the same Flight School.
“Fair enough, though let’s try and keep that from getting out eh?” Spitfire said in a low tone and Rainbow nodded. “But I got to thinking, and I’m sorry for how this sounds, but you didn’t by any chance have a few drinks while you were pregnant with your daughter did you? We both know the possible side effects of that…”
Rainbow glared at her commander harshly.
“No, I would never! I swore never to even touch a bottle of booze, not even the light stuff! Not after how my father treated me!” Rainbow snapped, not even caring the tone she was taking with her boss. “So if you’re going to accuse me of that kind of shit, you better have some really good proof to back it up!”
Spitfire took a step back, and sighed. Right, this was Rainbow she was talking to. One of the most anti-alcoholic ponies she’d ever known.
“I’m… I’m sorry, you just can’t blame me for being concerned you know? Looking out for the young girl. Not just because she’s your daughter, but because she’s a fellow pegasus. We stick up for our brethren, our flock if you will.”
“Yeah, I understand… Sorry boss.” Rainbow apologized.
“No, I’m the one who should be sorry. My remarks, they hit a little too close to home. More than they should have…”
“It’s alright commander,” Rainbow replied, giving Spitfire a smile. “Let’s just hit the skies alright?”
Spitfire smirked. “Gladly Crash. Last one to the end of the course is cleaning the dishes tonight!”
With that, she took off like a rocket leaving Rainbow to shout: “Hey, no fair! Didn’t even say ready set go!”