Chapter 4: For What It's Worth
Scootaloo was riding her scooter toward Ponyville. Celestia's bright sun was lowering itself in the distance and the sky was getting darker. The orange pegasus reached Ponyville Square just as the streetlights were beginning to turn on. The square was pretty vacant save a few group of ponies chatting amongst themselves. Scootaloo didn't pay attention to them, as she was lost in her mind and wrestling with her own feelings.
'That dumb dragon! Why did he have to go and ruin such a good day for me by saying that. Now that's all I can think about,' the pegasus thought to herself as she drove, 'I don't need this right now, I have bigger and more important things to deal with, like learning to fly, and getting my cutie mark, and….okay, I guess that's it, but I want to just get those things done! I mean, what's his deal? Why would he like me? If he liked any of the other fillies, they would be more than happy to be his marefriend or whatever. They probably think that he's really charming. And easy on the eyes as well as pretty cute. And he kinda is adorable when he embarrassed and stuff….wait a minute, what am I thinking? There is now way I like Spike like that! No way, no h-'
Scootaloo's thinking was cut short when her scooter hit a bucket of apples in front of a merchant cart. Flying forward and hitting the ground with a thud, she carefully raised her head that now had an upside down bucket upon her head. "Oww…." she moaned as she lifted the wooden bucket off her head to see a worried orange earth pony with a blonde mane and a brown hat.
"Goodness, are ya aright, sugarcube?" the pony asked.
Scootaloo recognized both the pony and her voice, it was Applebloom's older sister Applejack, "Yeah, I'm alright. Nothing damaged expect my pride. Sorry about this, Applejack."
"It's quite fine….Scootaloo was it?" Applejack asked, hoping she remembered her sister's friends. The pegasus nodded to the earth pony, "Well, good to hear. Ya seem a bit off there, sugarcube, care ta talk about it?"
Scootaloo was about to object to the idea of sharing, however, she stood up her hooves and sighed, "Ya know, I think it might actually help me right now."
Applejack nodded, "Well, go ahead say what needs ta be said as I pick up the apples, dear."
Letting another sigh escape her body, Scootaloo began, "Well, I kinda am just confused with some stuff right now….I think part of me has fallen for somepony. It's not like I don't want to like him or anything….but I don't want to deal with that junk right now. I just want to get my cutie mark and finally fly on my own."
Applejack had finished gathering most of the fallen apples in the bucket that was pervious on Scooaloo's head, "Well, fer what it's worth, sugarcube, ah do understand where yer comin' from. An' to save you the trouble ah had, let me just tell ya this, ya can't always control things in yer life. An' this includes who ya fall for and when."
Scootaloo was looking down as Applejack spoke, not wanting to believe her words to be true. She then felt a hoof on her back and a voice she could recognize anywhere, "She is right about that, squirt."
Scootaloo looked up to see that it was her sister, Rainbow Dash. She continued, "If things in our life could be controlled easily, then I would be in the Wonderbolts right now! But no pony has that kind of power. Don't get me wrong, even though I'm not with the 'bolts, I wouldn't change a thing about how things turned out. Not one"
Scootaloo looked down at her front hooves and the ground. When she looked up to the others, she asked, "So, what should I do, Dash?"
"Whatever you want to do, Scoots."
Finding some courage within herself, Scootaloo nodded to her sister and replied with confidence, "Alright, I will try it." Scootaloo grabbed her scooter off the ground and rode off to Fluttershy's cottage for the evening.
As the two friends watched the orange pegasus ride away, Applejack asked Rainbow Dash, "Ya think she's got the guts to do whatever she wants ta do?"
"Of course she does, she is my sister!" Rainbow Dash said proudly with a big smile.
"That's what ah'm kind of afraid of, Rainbow," the earth pony smirked.
"Oh, shut it, Applejack!"
Meanwhile, Scootaloo was deeply thinking as she was riding back. She was filled with newfound spirit and confidence. 'I can do this. Applejack and Dash are right, I should just go for it!' As the pegasus arrived to her quarters, she didn't know that she wouldn't have the same amount of confidence the next day.