****Trigger warning****
The following chapter details some of my very own pain regarding how my mother passed away. I’m writing it here because I wanted it known and I feel that it needs to be said somewhere... If you are squeamish or can’t handle ultra-emotional stuff, you really should just skip to the final paragraph for a brief synopsis instead. Thank you!
“I can still hear her screams sometimes, at night…” Scootaloo said to the alicorn and unicorn as she stood there in the clearing, on the campsite…
Izzy leans forward and asks, “What are you talking about?”
Scootaloo blinks and stares deep into the unicorn’s eyes, “I mean, I still hear her screams in agony!”
Sunny widens her eyes as she stares at the pegasus ghost, “W-what are you talking about?”
Scootaloo takes a deep breath through her mouth, in and out and stares at the fire before the two other ponies and closes her eyes and looks down as she says, “It was Apple Bloom… She caught swamp fever…” she raises her gaze and opens her eyes at the other ponies, “They tried to use the flash bee honey treatment again, b-but it didn’t work this time! It didn’t heal her and," Scootaloo closes her eyes and breathes heavily through her mouth again, “And she didn’t get better…” she opens her eyes to the other ponies again, “I remember that they planted her in the Everfree Forest… You know, birch trees only live for about forty or fifty years… I’m sure she’s long gone by now…”
Izzy can only cough out, “I am so sorry, Scootaloo!”
“Yeah um…” Scootaloo blinks, “Sweetie Belle went catatonic and wouldn’t speak to anypony after that, and I, well…” she blinks again, “I moved to Fillydelphia and got a factory job… You know, the vodka helped, but eventually, I realized there wasn’t enough vodka in all of Equestria…” she swallows, “That could fill that gaping hole AB left when she passed… I can only…” she blinks again and smiles slightly, “I can only be glad that in the end, she spent her final days as a tree… I really couldn’t imagine a more peaceful life, but at the same time, I really missed her…”
Sunny just stares at the pegasus with wide cerulean eyes as she stammers out, “I really wish I could hug you right now, Scootaloo…”
Scootaloo smirks slightly wider, “Yeah, I’d like that… Anyway, this chicken costume is my punishment, I’m thinking… For not being there and failing Apple Bloom, like I did…”
Sunny narrows her mouth, “That makes no sense, Scootaloo! She had a terminal disease! There’s nothing you could’ve done!”
Scootaloo flaps her wings, still in their white confines as she exclaims, “I know there’s something I really should’ve said or done?” she looks off to the left side while continuing to stammer, “I don’t know, but I think I failed Apple Bloom, okay?” before closing her eyes… “I failed her…” Scootaloo shudders out while hanging her head down…
Sunny glances over at Izzy, sitting on her haunches on the ground to her left and whispers, “I’m not really sure how to handle this one?”
Izzy takes a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth as she closes her eyes, before opening them again, up at the pegasus and getting to her hooves and causing her long wavy mane to shake as she looks at her and says, “Scootaloo Chan! Listen to me and focus!” She trots towards the pegasus a few paces as Scootaloo stares at her with wide eyes, “You need to understand that whatever’s done is done! You also need to know that whatever you did do, I’m sure Apple Bloom understands, wherever she may be, and also, you need to honor her memory by being the best you can be!” she blinks before continuing, “You need to understand that the best way to give praise to her memory is to be your best!”
Scootaloo blinks back at Izzy and frowns, “But I’m a ghost now!”
Izzy nods her head and stares intently at the pegasus, “Then you should be the best ghost you can be! But you should also know that I do not believe the chicken suit is punishment for not being there, as you say…”
Scootaloo blinks, “You don’t?”
Izzy shakes her head and stares back at the pegasus and as her mane settles, she says bleakly, “No! Think, Scootaloo Chan! As I already said, ‘there’s nothing you could’ve done!’ As such, it stands to reason that the suit must be on you for some other cause?”
Scootaloo visibly frowns deeper from around her strap-on beak, “Then what could it be?”
Izzy widens her eyes and leans forward slightly as she exclaims, “I don’t know?”
Sunny suddenly interjects from behind Izzy, “Uh, Izzy! What was that?”
Izzy looks back at Sunny from over her right shoulder, “What? Was it something I said?”
Scootaloo noticeably smiles from behind her strap-on beak, “I guess uh, I guess you two are my friends, right? I guess I kinda do have a life now, even though I’m actually dead…”
Izzy turns her neck back to Scootaloo, “Yes!” she nods, “And you need to use this opportunity, to be the best you can be!”
Scootaloo smiles as she chuckles slightly, “Yeah! I’m sure I’ll be the best chicken-ghost around!”
Izzy widens her eyes, “Well, you don’t really have a lot of competition in that department?”
Scootaloo widens her eyes, “What?”
Izzy smirks at the pegasus, “I’m just saying, I imagine you’re the absolute best chicken-pegasus-ghost in all of Equestria, right now, as we speak!”
Scootaloo widens her eyes and grimaces under her beak a moment later, “Izzy! Knock it off!”
Izzy leans forward slightly again as she widens her eyes, “What?”
Sunny gets to all fours as she giggles and takes a few paces towards the pegasus on the other side of the fire, now in cinders in the little pit they made, stares at her, and asks, “Wait! So, you still went to heaven, right?”
Scootaloo nods, “Right! Or Elysium, or the great beyond or, whatever you wanna call it…”
Sunny nods, “Right! Well, did you meet Apple Bloom there?”
Scootaloo narrows her mouth so it’s all behind her beak, “Um, well, that is to say, I uh…” and she trails off in her wording while staring blankly off to the right…
Sunny stares at the pegasus intently, “What was that?”
Scootaloo sighs and finally stammers out to the alicorn, “Well, not exactly…”
Sunny frowns, “What do you mean?”
Scootaloo giggles softly, “Heh heh, well, you see, I DO know where she is!” she nods, “I know that, but uh, well…”
Sunny leans forward as the unicorn looks onward from her left, “Well, what?”
Scootaloo widens her eyes when she realizes that she might as well just confess and get this over with, “Well, I haven’t spoken to Apple Bloom or Sweetie Belle in about two thousand years,” she widens her eyes, “Although I know where their houses are in the afterlife!”
Sunny widens her eyes when she suddenly realizes who Scootaloo is, “W-wait!” she points with her right forehoof, “You’re one of the Cutie Mark Crusaders!”
Scootaloo smiles from behind her beak, “Caught me, red hooved!”
Izzy turns her neck to Sunny on her right, “Cutie Mark, what now?”
Sunny excitedly looks at Izzy with wide eyes, “The Cutie Mark Crusaders! They started out as a group of three fillies, trying to find their cutie marks, and ended up being like, cutie mark consultants! It’s in the Friendship Journal!”
Izzy turns her neck back to Scootaloo, “Oh wow! So, you’re famous?”
Scootaloo frowns, “Well I was? Once upon a time, everypony knew who I was! These days though, they mostly just scream at me…”
Izzy widens her eyes and shakes her head as she says, “Oh come on Scoots! Who’s the best chicken-ghost around?”
Scootaloo grimaces and giggles slightly, “Stop it, Izzy!”
Izzy smiles and shakes her head while continuing whimsically, “Come on Scoots! Who’s the best chicken-ghost around?”
Scootaloo smiles again and chuckles more, “I am!”
Izzy nods, “That’s right, Scoota-Chicken! You are!”
Scootaloo continues to snicker slightly, “I swear, Izzy! I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, but you’re gonna pay for this!”
Izzy widens her red eyes to the ghostly chicken, “Oh yeah, sure! I’m shaking in my horseshoes!” she cranes her head back to Sunny on her right, “So uh, we ready to head west again now, or?”
And so, at the campsite, Scootaloo detailed the awful way in which Apple Bloom died and how she passed… That she had swamp fever and that no treatment worked… That she slowly and painfully turned into a tree… She also told them about her guilt, before Izzy explained to her that it’s a terminal illness and there’s nothing she could’ve done… Scootaloo still feels some level of guilt and remorse, although she’s beginning to understand now that there was nothing she could do at the time… And so, how will she move past the tragedy now?
(To be continued…)