//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Welcome! // Story: The Ghost of Chicken Scootaloo // by Betty_Starlight //------------------------------// “Scoota-chicken Chan!” Izzy says to Scootaloo as she stares at the ghost and frowns. Scootaloo is wearing her chicken costume and sitting on her haunches while leaning with her back on a tree and her head down, when she starts and screams up at Izzy, “AAAAAAAAHHH!!!!” Izzy blinks, “Um, you okay?” Scootaloo stares up at the unicorn with wide eyes, “Uh, yeah! Yes! I think so?” Izzy frowns, “Do you space out often?” Scootaloo frowns from behind her beak, “Well, yeah…” “Why is that?” Scootaloo sighs, “I just wish I wasn’t here…” “Do you not enjoy our company?” Scootaloo starts, “Well um, that is, I do, but uh…” Izzy leans forward with concern in her red eyes, “But what?” Scootaloo smiles faintly, “But well, I was finally thinking about Apple Bloom again after all this time… I bet her and Sweetie Belle know each other again, by now?” “Who can say for sure? But before you can meet her again, we have to get you back to the afterlife!” Izzy adjusts her gaze, “But uh, you’re okay, Scootaloo?” Scootaloo blinks, “Um, I think so?” Izzy tilts her head slightly to the left as she leans forward, “Because I can always make fun of you some more? If you think I need to?” Scootaloo starts again and tries to suppress a smile, “No no, Izzy! I’m good!” Izzy smiles as she straightens her neck, “You sure about that, comb-head?” Scootaloo gets to her hooves while shaking her head gently, “Positive!” Izzy raises her gaze as the pegasus rises, “Okay, beak-face! But just so you know, I’m here for you if you need anything, feather-brain!” Suddenly, an orange alicorn trots in from Izzy’s back left from the campsite behind her on the grassy fields and she looks at Izzy as she stops, just shy of her, and says, “Izzy, are you picking on poor Scootaloo again?” Izzy turns her head to the alicorn and says, “No!” At the same time Scootaloo cranes her neck to Sunny and exclaims, “Yes!” Sunny shakes her head and adjusts her gaze to both ponies before saying, “Knock it off, you two! Anyway, did you know there’s a village out here?” Izzy frowns, “How would I know? Unicorns don’t normally travel this far west.” <*****> The ponies approach an odd village with a single road leading through it and houses and shops on either side. All of the buildings are painted white, and they’re all connected in a straight line. As they approach however, everypony in town, earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi all begin to scream and panic as they run for their buildings on either side of the street! “Curse marks!” Sunny hears one of them say as she trots next to Izzy, with Scootaloo at their front, still in her chicken outfit. Izzy looks to Sunny on her right with wide red eyes and asks, “Are they afraid of us? Because I think this has happened to me once before?” Sunny stares back at Izzy with her own wide cerulean eyes, “Uh, I’m not sure why?” She stops trotting and Izzy reciprocates as she looks forward and her horn begins to have a golden glow as she magically amplifies her voice, “Please come out! It is perfectly safe! We are not here to hurt you!” Scootaloo stops just 5 feet from one end of the village road as a tumbleweed blows from her left to the right and she frowns from behind her beak, when she suddenly hears a whispered attempt to get her attention from a wooden barrel with two black rings on her right, “PSST!” Went the voice. Scootaloo turns her neck that way to notice a tan earth mare with freckles and long orange mane and tail hiding behind the barrel as she leans above it and whispers louder so the pegasus can hear, “You’re fine! Your friends need to hide their curse marks! It will hex us all! Uh, why can I see right through you?” Scootaloo widens her eyes at the strange tan mare and says, “Uh, don’t worry about that! I’ll take care of it!” before Scootaloo turns her body back to the unicorn and alicorn behind her and the strange mare ducks behind the barrel and skulks off to Celestia knows where. Scootaloo takes 5 paces to meet the other two ponies, “Uh, hey girls! You gotta hide your cutie marks to be in this town!” Izzy widens her eyes and narrows her mouth, “That’s a new one!” Sunny swallows, “Really?” Scootaloo gazes off to the right before adjusting her eyes to the alicorn, “Yeah, they’re calling them curse marks and I think it’s a local superstition?” Izzy frowns, “That’s weird!” Sunny stares at Izzy on her left, “Izzy! Unicorns used to do the Bing Bong Song and Dance!” Izzy turns right to Sunny, “What’s weird about the Bing Bong song and dance routine?” <*****> As the two ponies trotted towards the village once more, now with colored construction paper on their flanks, just behind their saddlebags to cover up the remainder of their cutie marks there, they stop 20 feet from the same end of the road and Sunny, now with pink construction paper on her flanks, stares at Izzy, “Why did you bring construction paper?” Izzy, now with sky-blue construction paper on her flanks, stares back at Sunny, “Because we might need it!” Sunny narrows her eyes, “Yeah, but the odds that we’d be in any sort of scenario that needed construction paper were slim!” Izzy smiles, “But not impossible! Now we can use it cover up our awful curse marks! Aren’t you happy?” Sunny starts, “They’re not curse marks, and no silly superstition is going to change that!” Izzy blinks and frowns, “Well, you say that now?” Both ponies look back forward, towards the village and notice that it’s still empty. Sunny sighs, “Oh, they’re still hiding!” before her horn glows golden again to amplify her voice, “We have covered our curse marks! It is safe to come out now!” Suddenly a green earth stallion with a blue mane and tail opens the door to the shop on Sunny’s right, at the very edge of the street and it makes a jingle jangle noise as he releases the door with his flank and it shuts. He turns his body to the three ponies and trots to them before smiling and saying, “We understand that the heathen ponies don’t normally cover their curse marks, but you see, you need to keep them covered while here in our happy village!” He eyes the two living ponies carefully before raising his head and shouting, “It’s alright! They covered their curse marks!” Then, everypony else in town starts to clamor out of their respective buildings and hiding places to reveal a bustling village just full of activity! The ponies begin to approach Sunny and Izzy with smiles on their happy faces! Izzy suddenly realizes that she doesn’t see Scootaloo anywhere when a pink earth mare with a blond mane and tail smiles at her and says, “Welcome to Our Town!” (To be continued…)