A light was still burning in one of the library windows on the ground floor by the time we returned to Ponyville. There were still ponies out on the streets, but we were thankfully left to ourselves.
Upon our arrival, Twilight knocked at the door, and in a few moments, Spike answered it, a candle in his hand. He looked much relieved to see me and Scootaloo safe and sound. There were tired circles under his youthful eyes.
“How’s Pinkie?” Twilight asked.
“Pretty bad,” the dragon answered. “She hasn’t said a word, and she’s been crying. It’s almost just like last time…”
*Stab* Another dagger of guilt…
…Wait, ‘last time’? What did Spike mean by that?
“Well, this should be a welcome surprise for her, then,” said Twilight, bracingly.
Spike led us inside, where a dismal sight greeted my eyes.
Pinkie was sitting alone on the sofa in the middle of the library. Her eyes were closed, and a thin trickle of tears was running down her cheeks, forming a puddle on the floor. As heart-wrenching as that was to look at, that wasn’t what unsettled me. It was her mane.
Ever since I’d met her and gotten to know her a little better, I’d been under the impression that the frizzy, poofy mess of a mane was just her natural style. Now, however, her mane, while still the same shade of dark pink, looked limp and lank, like a deflated balloon. Her tail looked much the same way. Honestly, if it hadn’t been for the miserable expression on her face, I would have said that that style was quite cute on her.
“What happened to her mane?” I whispered.
“This happened once before, when she was really depressed,” Spike whispered back. “Her whole mane went all limp.”
*Stab*... I wanted to rush over and hug her, but something compelled me to stay where I was.
“Pinkie,” Spike softly called.
She didn’t respond.
“Pinkie,” Spike tried again, “someone’s here to see you.”
At last, Pinkie looked up, her eyes reddened from crying. She turned to look at us, and those eyes widened upon spying me.
“…Davie?” she asked, in such a small, pathetic voice that it drove tears to my eyes.
“Pinkie…”
She got down from her seat and sat on the floor, staring at me as if I were a ghost. Nothing was holding me back now. I rushed over to her, collapsing to my knees, and embraced her close to me.
I felt like an unworthy son, a disrespectful rascal who had kept his parents worried sick with his selfish escapades, just to come home to see what he’d done to them, and was now begging their forgiveness with tears more than words. How could I not have taken Pinkie’s feelings on the matter into account? Even the most logical of senses would have dictated that she would have been concerned that I’d gone into a place taboo to Ponyville culture, and I’d ignored that, out of a sense of heroism. I’d only thought of Scootaloo, and while that justified why I would do something so careless, I also should have had the considerations of my friends in mind, like Applejack had, albeit quietly, berated me for not doing. I should have told them beforehand...
Pinkie remained stock-still, as if shell-shocked, but slowly, I felt her hooves work up and around me in a hug of her own.
“Is it really you?" she asked.
“Of course it’s me, Pinkie,” I said, in a choked voice, “of course it’s me…”
“Oh, Davie…” Pinkie whimpered, hugging me even tighter. “Davie, I thought I’d lost you. I thought you might have…”
“No, no, Pinkie. I’d never do that to you. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you like that. I should have told you what I was doing. Oh, Pinkie, can you ever forgive me for being such a reckless doofus?”
She pulled away from me enough for me to gaze into her eyes. Though raw and red from crying, there was still that gentle blue in them. A small smile was on her face.
“I already have,” she said.
She leaned up and kissed me softly on my bandaged wound, like a mother kissing her child’s boo-boo.
Oh, bless you, dear Pinkie Pie. Bless you…
I just held her in my arms as she softly lay against my chest, like one being comforted after a horrible dream. That’s what this whole experience seemed like: one big horrible nightmare that was now being washed away with the knowledge that someone you cared about was there to reassure you. No one interrupted us, and rightly so, as I would have wanted nothing to ruin this moment.
Finally, both of us feeling much better, we turned to face the others. Twilight had a warm smile on her face, her eyes glistening as if tears were at the edge of them. Spike, though previously determined to prove he was above such sentiments, was honking away at a handkerchief. Scootaloo’s expression, however, was indeterminable. I couldn’t rightly guess what might have been going on in her head at that moment, thought she seemed to have been profoundly affected.
She had little time to keep such an expression, however, as it was her turn to receive a Pinkie hug, scooped up into the older mare’s forelegs as if she had been her aunt. She made no objections, but just gave a sort of frustrated sigh, as if the part of her more tomboyish nature that objected to public displays of affection had been called into play.
“Pinkie,” I said, calling my friend’s attention back, “we need to ask something very important of you.”
Pinkie, seeming to understand what this meant, released Scootaloo and sat at attention. Now that her misery had abated by this point, I could say without hesitation that she did look nice with her mane down.
“I’m not sure if you realized it or not, but Scootaloo’s…Well, she has no home, so to speak.”
“Oh. That’s awful…” Pinkie said, sympathetically.
She looked at the little filly, who kept her eyes averted.
“I agree," I said. "She’s agreed to let us help dig her out of this hole she’s ended up in-”
Here Pinkie gazed around the floor, as if expecting to find some actual hole under Scootaloo’s hooves. I waited patiently until she’d ceased searching, then proceeded,
“-but under the condition that the knowledge that she's an orphan remains between us. Am I clear?
She nodded. However, I pointed a finger at her and said, in a serious tone,
“Do I have it as your word, as a Pinkie Promise, that what we’re about to hear won’t pass from your lips onto anyone else outside of this private council, unless permitted?”
Pinkie regarded me for a few moments in silence, something like awe on her face. Perhaps this was because she hadn't expected me to become so well-versed in the arts of promise keeping, or to take it so seriously. Whatever the case, she nodded and went through the signs customary to making a Pinkie Promise complete and valid.
“Well, that’s settled, then,” I said. Then I turned to Spike. “Spike, this means you, too.”
Spike looked at Twilight, as if uncertain of where this was leading, but she merely nodded to him, and so he in turn crossed his heart and placed one clawed hand over one eye. Now that that was settled with, I turned to Scootaloo.
“Do you feel well enough for us to ask you some questions, Scoot?”
“Yeah," said Scootaloo, after a pause.
“All right, then," said Twilight. "Everyone, let’s take a seat.”
Using her magic, she pulled an armchair over to sit at an angle to the couch. Here she said I could sit, so as to be more comfortable, but placed a towel on it nonetheless, since I was still dirty from being in the forest. As I sat down, to my wonder, Scootaloo walked over to me and, with momentary assistance from her little wings, hauled herself up into my lap. I regarded her questioningly for this action, as I expected her to be more suited among Twilight and Pinkie, but she only gave me a weak smile.
Twilight, Pinkie, and Spike, meanwhile, made themselves comfortable on the couch. Looking up momentarily made me aware of Owlowiscious’ presence as well, but as soon as my eyes fell on him, to my perplexity, he went through the Pinkie Promise signs with his wings. Dumbfounded, I looked from him to Twilight, who only looked at me in mild curiosity. Had she taught him that?
Shaking my head, I looked down at the little filly.
“Scoot, before we start, I wanna ask you point-blank: is it because of what I said that made you go into the forest?”
Scootaloo looked surprised.
“What? Why would you think that?”
“Well, I kind of made you angry the day before you went in, so I was worried that-”
“No, no, no!” Scootaloo insisted, gazing imploringly up at me. “I did get kind of peeved, but that's not why I went in.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I'm sorry if I made you feel that way.”
She looked up at me with those innocent purple eyes, melting my heart anew.
“Aw, Scoot,” I muttered, petting her mane. “It’s all right. It was just a stupid worry. I fret about stuff like that all the time. People back home call me a worrywart because of it.”
At last, Scootaloo relaxed again and sat on her haunches on my lap, looking up at me.
“So, I guess we ought to start from the beginning,” I said.
She nodded sadly, then, with everyone present listening attentively, she commenced.
***
“I only remember a little about my mom. She passed away when I was really young. I remembered how she looked, though. She was a pegasus, pretty but also kind of sad. When she died, Dad became moody, and he started drinking. He'd always been kind of a rough pony, but it was a lot worse now. When he was really low, he’d start raving and blaming me for Mom dying. He said she’d always been sickly, and that I only made her die faster. ‘It’s all your fault, runt! It’s all your fault!’ That's what he'd say…”
The dirty scoundrel…and she was only a child! What sick mind forces the blame onto an innocent, unoffending little kid?! If I’d had the honor of knowing that booz wretch, I’d have introduced his face to my fist…At least, I would have liked to, had it been in my nature.
Scootaloo had paused, this abominable memory bringing her into a deeper melancholy. I stroked her mane gently, soothing her, until she was calm enough again to proceed.
“I didn’t have any other relatives, so I didn’t have anyone to save me from Dad. I just had to bear it out for as long as I could. He never taught me to fly, mostly because he was either too drunk or too lazy, or he just didn’t care about me at all. I hated what he’d become, but there was nothing I could do about it…
“Finally, when I was old enough to attend school, I wanted to attend a flight academy, to improve my chances of flying, but Dad had other ideas. He sold our cloud home and moved down to an old shack just outside of Ponyville…”
“But why-” I began.
“When I asked him, all he said was that Cloudsdale had ‘too many bad memories’, and he expected that to be good enough for me, but it wasn’t. Still, at least I have him to thank for my scooter.”
“Your scooter?”
“Even if Dad wouldn’t teach me to fly, that didn’t mean my wings were completely useless. One year, for my birthday, either to be ironic or because he wasn’t so drunk at the time, he bought it for me. That scooter was my one escape from home, my one vent to my frustrations. I took to riding it outside the house when he was asleep, since I could use my wings to at least propel it.
“Then, all of a sudden, he acted like he’d gotten a change of heart. He enrolled me in Cheerilee's class, and said he would ‘make a genius’ out of me if I couldn’t be a flier. Besides the scooter, it was the nicest thing he’d ever done, because that’s how I met my friends, and being with them made me forget about my troubles at home.”
The shadow of a smile appeared on her face in remembering her dear friends. I could see I was right in recognizing the close bond between the three of them.
“But Cheerilee said she didn’t know you had any guardians," I said. "How could that be if your father enrolled you?”
“He didn’t use his name or appear in person. He just put me at the door with my papers.”
“That lazy son of a-”
But thankfully, I stopped myself before I could finish it.
Here, Scootaloo became very solemn, as if on the threshold of an important revelation.
“Then, one day, when I came home from riding my scooter, he wasn’t there, even though he’d only gone out that morning. I’d been used to him going out and not being around for hours, but never for a whole day. I didn’t bother about it, until the next morning, when he still hadn’t come back. I went out to look for him, and I found him…He was face-down in a river, and he wasn't moving.”
A small gasp ran through Scootaloo’s audience. That had to have been an absolutely horrible sight for such a little kid…
“I’d never felt that close to him before, but realizing he wasn’t coming back still hurt me badly. Now both of my parents were gone. I was all alone…”
Her eyes began to grow wet again. Feeling a pang of sympathy, I gently stroked Scootaloo’s mane again.
“I was too scared to know what to do at first. All I could think of was that I had to get away. I took all of my possessions and my scooter and went off to fend for myself. Thankfully, we’d recently gotten our Cutie Mark Crusaders clubhouse, and Apple Bloom had newly refurbished it-”
“Whoa-whoa, wait!” I interrupted, dumbfounded. “Did you say…Apple Bloom refurbished your clubhouse?”
“Yeah. She did a really sweet job, too: repainted it, sanded it down to avoid splinters, patched up the roof, fixed the windows. Why?”
For a few moments, I was unable to speak. Apple Bloom had a knack for remodeling and fixing architecture, and she still didn’t have her cutie mark? What were these kids missing??…
“Nothing. Go ahead.”
“Well, anyway, I was able to keep my stuff hidden in a secret compartment that only I knew about. I knew I had to figure out some way to get food and keep clean, so I got myself a paper route to make myself some bits, which was a cinch since I had my scooter. It was in the morning, too, so nopony that knew me well enough could get suspicious of me. So, up until now, I’ve been able to live pretty well. It’s not perfect, but I at least get by.”
Wow. I'd heard stories of orphans roughing it and getting by on their own wits and resourcefulness, but this just seemed to beat all. Everyone else looked just as amazed.
"Well," I said, after a pause, "then that brings us to our next important question. What really prompted you to go into the Everfree Forest?”
Scootaloo's expression became, if possible, even gloomier.
“Well…Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon have always had a thing for getting under everypony’s skin. Well, more Diamond Tiara, really. Silver Spoon isn’t as rude as she used to be, but that doesn’t change the fact that she still goes around with her. Anyway, on my way back ‘home’ the day I met you, I ran into Diamond Tiara. She said she’d heard a rumor that I didn’t even have a home, that she’d never even seen me with my mom or dad. I told her to shut up about them, but that just made her nastier. She tried to make me feel bad for having nopony to care about me, and I told her I didn’t need anypony, that I could take care of myself. She dared me to prove it, and when I couldn’t think of anything, she just walked off, calling me a ‘blank flank loser loner’.
"I got so mad that I didn’t even know where I was riding, and I found I’d taken the wrong way and was outside the entrance to the forest. Diamond Tiara’s voice was still ringing in my head, so I decided to prove I wasn’t a loser loner once and for all. I dumped my scooter near the entrance and went in, aiming to go as far as I could before finally turning back. After a while, though, everything started to look the same, and I had no idea where I was. I got really scared and hid inside a log until tonight. The storm scared me out, but then I realized I was near Zecora’s hut, where I found you and Fluttershy.”
She’d hidden in a log in the forest for two whole days?! The poor thing must have been starving!
As if she sensed what this implied, Twilight looked at Spike, who nodded and went into the kitchen.
“Well, Scoot,” I said, finally, “I have to say, you’ve had a…tumultuous life.”
“Don’t I know it…”
“There’s just one thing I don’t get. When your dad died, why didn’t you seek someone for help? What about the mayor, or a judge? One of them would have gotten you situated better than in a clubhouse.”
“I did think of that at the time, but they would’ve just put me in an orphanage, since I had nowhere else to go, no other family to take me in. I didn’t want to go there.”
“Well, I can understand why. I don't like the prospect of an orphanage, either, but there’s no denying that you would still have had shelter, a roof over your head, 3 meals a day, a warm bed-”
“And no chance of leaving!” Scootaloo snapped, suddenly, catching me by surprise. “It’s not just because I’d have had less of a chance of being with my best friends, but also because I’d have been a lifer! Who would’ve wanted to adopt me?! Who would want a filly who hasn’t even grown into her wings yet, who hasn’t even gotten her cutie mark, who her own dad gave up on?! I couldn’t take that kind of rejection again! I just…I just couldn’t…”
Her tiny frame wracked with sobs, as bitter tears ran down her cheeks.
“Scootaloo…”
More and more, I was feeling like the biggest jerk in the world for bringing all of this out into the open. She buried her face into my chest, where she sobbed and hiccupped alternatively. Finally, she calmed down enough to listen to what I had to say.
“Listen to me, Scootaloo. Your father was wrong from Square 1.”
She looked up at me in some surprise.
“I don’t intend to believe for one instant that you had anything to do with your mother passing away, or that you’re one ounce the failure your father claimed you are. You’re a strong, good-hearted filly. You’ve proven just how resilient and dedicated you are just by making it this far. Children far less willful than you would have given up long ago. You’ve had it rough all your life, and I would never wish something like that upon anyone, but I can tell you one thing for sure, Scootaloo. You’re never truly alone. You have your friends, who will always be there for you. We're going to help you get through this. I promise.”
Wordlessly, she gazed up at me, tears still rimming her eyes. At last, she collapsed against me, crying quietly, and I just held her in my arms. Through her crying, I was able to discern one phrase, quietly spoken:
“…Thank you…”
At that moment, Spike poked his head in through the kitchen door.
“I’ve got some soup and sandwiches started,” he said.
“Thanks, Spike,” said Twilight.
She turned a questioning look to me, and I, nodding, carried Scootaloo with me into the kitchen, Twilight and Pinkie following.