//------------------------------// // Scootaloo // Story: Time-Out // by Trick Question //------------------------------// A pony-shaped figure awakens in silence and darkness. Stumbling groggily out of a large canopy bed, he pulls aside the thick black waterfall of cloth he rigged ages ago to banish the Sun. The bedroom is flooded with harsh, unforgiving light, and he winces. It's noon outside, which surprises him about as much as the taste of hay. He turns to look at Starlight's dresser, which awkwardly abuts the bed to keep clear of the Southern wall. Staring back at him from the mirror is a rather handsome, young-looking mare of chestnut pelt, moving her—or his, rather—hoof through a short mane of shocking purple. Also regarding him are numerous photographs of the Mane 6, Trixie, Sunburst, and a few of Starlight's other friends, stuck all around where the oval frame meets the mirror. Every photo oozes with implausible happiness. He glowers at the cheerful images, stretching his stunted wings in a defiant pose, but the moxie quickly evaporates. He reluctantly turns his attention back to the familiar pony in the looking-glass. "Morning, 'Loo," he says. His voice drips with sarcasm, but the audio waves disobey physics and refuse to exit his open muzzle. Instead, they echo through his head in a muffled timbre, sounding to his ears like his mouth was stuffed with marbles when he tried to speak. The vibration in his skull warms his cheeks as it dissipates. Still annoying after all these years, he thinks, but it's better off this way. With all my stupid self-talk, the whole countryside would be polluted with Scootanoise by now. He grimaces at the thought of racing full tilt between the castle and Ponyville and accidentally hitting an air pocket of his own squeaky voice. A diamond-tipped gem-cutter rests on the dresser. Scootaloo picks it up with one hoof and takes a three-legged trot to the calendar wall on the South side. The plain crystal wall has an unusually grainy look from a distance. Only from a pace or two away do the myriad of hatch marks become visible. The subtle glittering wounds spread across the entire surface of the wall, organized neatly into five rows of twenty clusters each. Every cluster hosts ten small pentagrams gathered together in a stellated shape resembling the vertices of a larger pentagram. Crouching beside the lower-right corner of the wall, Scootaloo scrapes a dash into the crystal to complete the final pentagram. He stands back and shakes his head at the unreality of it. "Ten thousand," he says, letting the words echo through meat and bone until they take root again in his brain. "That absolute bitch. Guess I should have made smaller marks... Maybe I'll deface Sunburst's room next." As the vocalizations tickle his nose, Scootaloo rubs its bridge soothingly with the back of a pastern. So weird. Still not used to the echo, but the thickness of the air seems normal as grass, he thinks, swishing his hoof through the soft resistance with a cotton-candy feel to it. It'll seem strange when it finally goes away. It's getting harder to remember what 'normal' used to feel like, not that anything about this surreal prison ever qualified. He cranes his neck back to glance at his cutie mark, the one almost perfectly matching Sweetie Belle's and Apple Bloom's, and a queasy feeling spreads through the innards of his horse-like body. "If only everything were easy to forget," he growls, using enough vocal fry in the resonance to make his eyes twitch as the noise crawls through his face. "The only good thing about this mess is being auto-juiced every time I wake up. Wonder if it's related to whatever brings me back to Square One when I wander too far away. Not like she needs a reason, of course." As Scootaloo brushes the edge of the magical mark with his hoof, a phantom pricking sensation pierces the flesh of his haunch muscle, causing it to seize up. It contorts the image on his pelt, making it briefly resemble the poor quality of a child's drawing. If anything, not having to use the needle proves there was never a need in the first place. All part of the charade. Sensing a memory on the horizon, he frowns and closes his eyes to brace for it. Despite so many years of distance, I still remember the sting... Day 29 It helped to be angry when he punched it in. Fortunately for Scootaloo, that emotion was never in short supply. He jabbed the needle into his haunch, right into the bullseye of his overwrought cutie mark: the center of the lightning bolt, outlined by a wing in an overt taunt of his disability. "Take that, you stupid ableist tattoo," he said, only partly in jest, and with that he shoved the plunger down hard with the frog of his hoof. Withdrawing the needle, Scootaloo quickly capped it and tossed it into the sharps bin beside the couch where he awkwardly sat in a manner horses hadn't evolved for. "Supposed to use a bandage, but it never bleeds," he said, pressing the area experimentally with his hoof. It was sore, but that wouldn't last long. "God, I hate needles. I guess I only have to do this once a week, but I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO DO IT AT ALL, NOW SHOULD I?" he said, shouting the last part up at the ceiling of his large, mostly empty house. He waited for an impatient minute, but there was no response. "I know you watch everything I do like some kind of sick peeping Tom. Get down here!" he yelled, despite knowing the demand was futile. It was getting harder and harder to summon her. Nowadays he had to fuck things up pretty bad to get her attention. That was easy enough to do, but rarely worth the effort. The conversations were always unpleasant, to say the least. Scootaloo cleared his throat and straightened his neck. "Being Transgender Is Endemic To Your Personality. Your Consciousness Is Not Compatible With A Stallion's Body. Any Attempt To Give You That Form Either Would No Longer Truly Emulate Your Consciousness Or Else Would Lead To Suboptimal Results," he intoned, putting as much pomposity into the robotic inflection as he could possibly muster. It was still a pale imitation. "Simulations. All-knowing because she runs these fucking 'simulations' to predict the future, like anypony could know me better than I know myself," he said, standing up and stretching his pathetic wings. "You can't judge a pony if you don't know them inside and out! And she might have access to every part of me, but she doesn't know anything. She isn't even conscious! They all warned us AI would turn out this way... alien as a Star Trek monster and making bizarre decisions that plague humanity." There was nothing to be done about it. He took a deep, cleansing breath and walked to the hallway mirror, glumly staring at the colorful and athletic pony's body that still didn't feel like his own. "Bleah. She might be an adult, but it still reminds me of her being a little kid. That's a whole pile of creep factor above and beyond the naked horse hoo-hah," he said. "Still, I suppose if I had to choose a mare, this would be the one. Looking like a stubborn bull-dyke on 'roids—no offense to lesbians, of course—is the next-best thing to being a real stallion, more or less. Dash would be a close second, but I'd hate the attention and I'd have to divorce AJ because there's no way in hell I'm sharing my bed with a horse, cartoon or otherwise." He walked to the front door, then paused, pondering for a moment the possibility of wearing pants today. They'll treat me like a male either way, but I wish ponies wore clothes all the time. I don't want to see any of that nonsense. Scootaloo lifted his head high, steeling his resolve. "You know, maybe someday I can convince them to show a little modesty, at least outdoors where foals can see them. Yona and Sandbar could always use the business," he said to himself. "That plan can wait, though. Bare asses don't come anywhere close to topping the list of injustices this twisted so-called 'paradise' has to offer. I have my work cut out for me." With that, he threw the door open wide, stepped out onto the porch, and struck a confident pose. "Watch out, Ponyville. Scootaloo's here to make this shitty world a better place."