In Scootaloo’s opinion, the journey started out badly. For one thing, she was almost completely certain that they were heading deeper into the Everfree Forest, not out of it. Although the golem moved purposefully, the route it followed had no discernable path or pattern that Scootaloo could notice. When asked about the direction, the golem simply replied that they were “following the trail”. It did not sit well with the pegasus filly, but at least daylight shone down past the treetops, making the forest bearable to travel through, although Scootaloo would not admit to her friends that she was nervous of just walking in the forest.
Apple Bloom seemed to have no such concerns. Her attention seemed entirely focused on the golem with an almost awestruck intensity. Looking at her, one would think that this journey was just about the greatest thing ever. Then again, Scootaloo hardly felt able to really blame her; the farmfilly had already managed to accomplish one part of her goal and created an actual golem, and now it was apparently leading them to the other half, the elusive Tincoat.
‘Our goal, not just Apple Bloom’s. We're in this together,’ Scootaloo reminded herself. 'But if so, why don’t I feel thrilled about this at all?’
She shook her head a bit, feeling somewhat silly. This was the sort of thing she always imagined herself doing when she thought about being daring and brave like Rainbow Dash; exploring dark places, going where other ponies did not dare to, showing that guts and determination were more important than other things, like Cutie Marks, or whether or not you could fly.
Ah yes, Rainbow Dash. It all comes back to her, doesn’t it?
Scootaloo forced the voice from her mind, unwilling to get into another debate with herself. Instead, she became aware of an insistent voice next to her. She shook her head a bit.
“Sorry, what’d you say, Sweetie Belle?”
The unicorn filly sighed a bit. “I asked: How many scones do you have left? Do you think we have enough to last us until we get to another town?” Sweetie Belle repeated patiently.
“Yeah, a couple. Why?”
“Well, we might be away a while, and I don’t think any of us brought any bits for food.”
“What’s the big deal? We can just eat grass if needed, you know,” Scootaloo pointed out, doing her best not to let her annoyance lash out at her friend.
“Well… yeah, but I’d rather not if I can help it. I’m not sure the grass here tastes so good,” Sweetie Belle replied, glancing around the forest floor meaningfully.
Scootaloo rolled her eyes a bit. Privately, though, she agreed with Sweetie Belle; grass was hardly at the top of her list of preferred food.
“So, uh, golem, d’ya have a name?” Apple Bloom asked ahead of them.
“No.”
“Oh.”
There was silence for a few moments before the earth filly spoke up again, undeterred.
“D’ya want a name? Ah can think up lots of different ones,” she said with a bright smile. The clay pony turned its featureless head towards the filly.
“Want?” it asked.
“Yeah, seems a bit rude to be callin’ ya golem all the time, is all.”
“There are not things I want. There are things I must. And getting a name is not one of them.”
Apple Bloom thought for a bit. “Still… ya don’t not want it, right?”
“There are not things I want. There are things—” the golem repeated, but Apple Bloom cut her off.
“Right! Well, in that case, Ah’m gonna give ya a name, since ya don’t mind either way. Ah’m gonna name ya, uhm...” She chewed her right cheek thoughtfully for a few moments. “Bigger Mac!” she declared.
“You sure it’s actually a stallion?” Scootaloo asked dubiously. Looking at the golem, as well as by listening to its voice, it was hard to determine what exactly it was.
“Yeah, maybe it’s a mare instead,” Sweetie Belle chimed in. “How about something like, I dunno, Clarity?”
“Is that a mare’s name?”
“Well, it’s a combination of clay and Rarity, and my sister is definitely a mare. Hence, Clarity,” Sweetie Belle stated smugly. Scootaloo had to fight the urge to facehoof.
“Ah don’t actually know what he or she is. Guess we’re gonna need a name that covers both options,” Apple Bloom mused. “How ’bout Clayhoof?”
“Claymane?” Scootaloo suggested.
“How about Golem?” came the ethereal reply. All three fillies looked at the golem.
“Did it just… make a joke?” Sweetie Belle asked curiously.
“No,” it said flatly. Scootaloo looked at it suspiciously. If there ever was a pony with the perfect poker face, this was definitely it.
Apple Bloom pouted. “All right, Golem it is, but only until Ah think up a better name!”
They all walked in silence for a bit, each filly wondering if their travel companion had just made fun of them.
Rainbow Dash fidgeted impatiently as she reclined on the tree branch, somewhat grateful for her knack for being able to make herself comfortable on almost any surface. Otherwise she would certainly have worn a groove in her back by now. There had been no sign of Scootaloo all day yesterday, or any this morning, and it was making her frustrated. She was starting to believe that she must have missed the filly in the brief time that she had been gone to attend her weather patrol duty, even though she was almost certain she had broken her own record again.
At last she heard a buzzing sound, in Rainbow Dash’s relieved mind the noise of Scootaloo’s wings propelling her along on her scooter, and she dropped down on the road in an expertly executed somersault, eyes closed, waiting until the buzzing got closer before speaking up.
“Oh heya, Squirt, it’s your lucky day today. I just so happen to have an extra ticket for the Ultra Roller-skater Race, and I was wondering if—”
The rest of her well-prepared-yet-completely-spontaneous speech was interrupted when she opened her eyes and noticed that the buzzing that promptly enveloped her was not an orange filly, but in fact an entire swarm of something that gave her horrible flashbacks to a certain Running of the Leaves event.
“Bees?! Not the bees! Not the bees! Aaaurgh!” She wailed, flailing her hooves around frantically as the swarm of merciless insect monsters surrounded her on all sides.
“Oh, an extra ticket? For me? That’s so nice of you, Dashie, but I’m not sure racing is really—Uhm, Dashie? Are you all right?”
Dash paused in her wild thrashing when she noticed that the expected attack of painful stings was not happening. Instead, the swarm calmly passed her by, or at least as calmly as an angrily buzzing swarm of insects could, revealing the concerned-looking yellow pegasus behind it.
“F-Fluttershy?” Dash gasped, spitting out an errant bee that had gotten into her mouth. It flew off to join its brethren. “What are all those bugs doing here?!”
“Oh, I’m helping them find a new home to set up a hive in. There’s an old oak tree just up the road that I think would suit them just fine,” Fluttershy replied with an affectionate smile at the bee swarm.
Dash shook her head a bit. Sometimes her old friend seemed like she was afraid of her own shadow, while at other times she happily hung around creatures that Dash would not poke with a stick a mile long.
“Uhm, but about your invitation, I’m not really sure—”
“Oh, that wasn’t for you,” Dash said quickly, before realizing how rude it might sound to her timid friend. “I mean, if you want to go watch some stuff, we can make a trip for that some other time, but I was actually going to give this to—You know what, nevermind,” she finished, halting herself before she could reveal too much.
“Oh, that’s all right, I’m not really sure a race is my thing, anyway. Not unless it’s something that somepony I know is participating in, like when you competed for Best Young Flier,” Fluttershy assured her.
Rainbow Dash let out an inaudible sigh of relief. Phew, disaster averted.
“Right, well, you go on ahead with your… bee-herding. I’ll just, uh, go back to napping, yeah.”
Fluttershy nodded. “Okay then. I don’t know if Scootaloo is coming this way, though. I haven’t seen her today.”
Dash almost bit her tongue. How does everypony know about Scootaloo?
“Who said anything about Scootaloo? Like I said, I was just having a nap in my new favourite napping spot,” she replied nonchalantly.
“Of course,” Fluttershy agreed with a smile. “But just in the event you would ever need to talk to her, you could always go see her at her house.”
“Wait, how do you know where she lives?” Dash asked before she could help herself.
“Oh, it’s down the road, in a house with a shed next to it. Her father came to see me one day with his injured pet budgie. Apparently Scootaloo had told him I was good with animals, so he asked me if I could help,” Fluttershy replied with the tiniest trace of pride.
“I fixed the poor thing up before too long and decided to bring her back myself. Scootaloo’s father is, uhm… not well,” she continued, her ears drooping a little.
“What do you mean?” Dash asked curiously.
“Well, he’s, uhm… he’s… he’s got some difficulties with walking. Uh, and flying,” Fluttershy mumbled. “It must have been hard for him to come all the way to me just to get his budgie treated, so bringing her back myself was the least I could do. Uhm, anyway, there are only two other houses there, so it shouldn’t be hard to spot,” she finished.
“Cool, well, thanks. Maybe I’ll go talk to her there, then. I mean, if I ever have to, that is,” Dash said, doing her best to seem disinterested.
“Oh, happy to help,” Fluttershy said with a smile. “I better get moving now. Talk to you later, Dashie.”
“All right, my friends, it’s time to get you settled into your new home!” she announced cheerfully. The swarm of bees, which had dispersed among the many flowers lining the roadside, gathered once again into a buzzing mass and obediently followed the yellow pegasus along the road. Dash gave a little shudder, feeling relieved when the swarm of insects finally moved away from her. She waited until Fluttershy disappeared from sight before taking off, flying high above the road until a distant cluster of buildings came into view.
The door to the house swung open, unlocked, as Rainbow Dash tried to knock on it, revealing the brightly lit interior.
“Hey, uh, Squirt? Anypony? Hello?” she called as she stepped over the threshold. There was no reply. She glanced back at the mailbox outside, which had indeed listed Scootaloo as one of the two names.
“Hello?” she repeated as she entered the house proper. As far as homes went, it seemed fairly unremarkable, with the usual things you would expect: table, kitchen, shelves. Some sort of board game was stashed aside on one of the windowsills. On closer inspection, it turned out to be Battlecloud, Dash’s own favourite. She allowed herself a little grin. Of course Scootaloo would enjoy a game like that, too. She gave the pictures on the walls a cursory glance before moving on; it was just a couple of typical family photos.
It seemed a bit strange that the house was unlocked when nopony came out to meet her. It occurred to Dash that Scootaloo might be napping; in truth, this was the time of day when Dash herself typically liked to catch a bit of shuteye. It should not come as a surprise that others might enjoy it, too. She pushed open the only other door in the house, which presumably led to Scootaloo’s room, and stepped inside. This one was much darker, with the curtains pulled down and the only lamp in the room unlit. To Dash’s surprise, the bed was empty. As she looked about the room, the picture-and-news plastered wall caught her eye. She walked over to see numerous iterations of herself grinning back at her, posing for the camera. She looked over the articles, seeing titles she recognized from moments of self-indulgence—of which there were more than a few—when she had read them herself, as well as others she had not seen before. Picture upon picture, article upon article.
“Wow,” Dash whispered to herself. She knew that Scootaloo admired her, of course; the filly was, after all, her number one fan and headed an entire fan club devoted to Dash, but it occurred to the older pegasus that she had not truly understood just how deeply Scootaloo’s devotion ran. She furrowed her brow a bit as her eye caught something behind the collage. She brushed aside a couple of pictures and articles, revealing another, much older newspaper cutout.
Selfless Heroine Gives Her Life to Save Village, the header declared in bold letters.
“What the hay…?” She squinted a bit to read the words in the dark.
It was supposed to have been a quiet day over the hamlet of Azure Creek, with nothing but a light rain scheduled for the afternoon. Like her co-workers, Summerbreeze was on weather patrol that day, awaiting the rain clouds from the Weather Factory in Cloudsdale. However, for reasons that are yet unknown, the clouds went out of control as they were being released from their berth. In a short time, they had coalesced and turned into a violent tempest. Several factory workers, including Summerbreeze’s husband, Gusting Ember, were grievously injured as the storm tore free from the staff's rushed attempts at restraining it. Unchecked, the tempest rapidly approached Azure Creek at a speed and intensity that eyewitnesses describe as being “like the sky itself roaring in fury, with lightning arcing from every surface.” Caught right in the middle of the tempest’s path, Azure Creek would be annihilated. The weather patrol team quickly began to organize an evacuation, but it was clear that the gale would overtake them long before they could get anypony to safety.
The denizens of Azure Creek were spared the fury of the storm by the actions of a single valiant pegasus. Seeing the impending tempest, Summerbreeze took off straight towards its core. Fellow patrol pegasus Dusk Glimmer described it thus: “There was no hesitation, no doubt, and no fear. I have never seen a pony look more determined than Summerbreeze did at that moment.” In a singular act of bravery, Summerbreeze flew into the heart of the tempest, dispersing it from within. Before the astonished eyes of the ponies watching, the tempest broke apart, scattering into individual clouds, each one only a fraction of the power of the furious storm they had been part of only moments ago. Azure Creek had been saved.
However, this was not without cost. In the moment of her triumph, the fury of the tempest overcame Summerbreeze; a lightning bolt of such intensity that even a pegasus could not survive struck her down. With her actions, she has shown us all the true meaning of that most noble of virtues: Sacrifice. To give everything so selflessly for others speaks of the depth of love Summerbreeze had for her fellow ponies, and such an act should never be forgotten. The mayor of Azure Creek has motioned for a memorial statue to be raised in the town square in her honour, while Princess Celestia herself has stated her intent to attend the funeral, which will take place at high noon three days from now. Summerbreeze died at the age of 22, leaving behind her husband, Gusting Ember, and their one-year-old daughter, Scootaloo.
Rainbow Dash took a step away from the wall, feeling a little queasy all of a sudden. Never in a million years would she have expected—
“Do you always make a habit of wandering into other ponies’ houses?” a deep voice asked behind her. Dash whirled around to see a peg-legged, one-winged pegasus stallion with a red coat standing in the doorway, looking at her with an expression of mild curiosity.
“Who the hay are you?” Dash blurted before she could stop herself. She knew exactly who the stallion was. She recognized him from the pictures in the living room.
The stallion raised an eyebrow. “I’m Gusting Ember. This is my house. I live here,” he replied with a trace of amusement.
“Uh, yeah. Right. I knew that,” Dash muttered, clearing her throat a bit. “Anyway, I’m—”
“Rainbow Dash, yes, I know,” Gusting Ember finished for her. “Scootaloo’s told me enough about you that I’d recognize you, even if you weren’t standing in front of a wall full of your likeness.”
“Oh, ah, has she? Yeah, I guess she would. She is my number one fan, after all.” Dash grinned, trying very hard to keep the nervousness from showing. Right now, she very much wanted to get away and digest the revelation she had just uncovered.
Ember nodded. “She has indeed. Which makes her lack of tales about your ‘awesomeness’ these past few days all the more puzzling. In fact, when I asked her yesterday, she became completely tight-lipped. Not that I’m accusing you of anything, Miss Dash, but has something happened between you two?”
“Uhm…” Dash began, rubbing the back of her mane and wracking her mind frantically for something that could explain to Ember, as well as herself, exactly what had happened between her and Scootaloo. However, the stallion seemed to read enough of her body language before she could think up a reply.
“I see,” he said calmly. “I know my daughter can be a handful, but since I’m sure you're a responsible mare, I don’t think I have to tell you that Scootaloo holds you in extremely high regard, and that if you wanted her to give you some more space, you might’ve considered breaking the news to her more gently.”
“It’s not that!” Dash protested quickly, struggling to find her usual veneer of cool. “It’s, uh, the opposite, actually. What I mean is, I think I might’ve been taking Squir—erhm, Scootaloo’s affection a bit… lightly?” She almost flinched a bit under the stallion’s steady gaze.
“Well, perhaps you should be having words with Scootaloo instead of me, then. Which I suppose is what you came here for in the first place?”
Dash nodded a bit. “I don’t suppose you know where she is?” she asked hopefully.
“She dropped by yesterday to tell me that she and her friends were having a sleepover at the farm. Sweet Apple Acres, I think it is? Since she isn’t home yet, I guess she’s still there. If not, perhaps somepony there can tell you more.” Throughout it all, Ember had spoken in the same calm, polite tone.
“Right! Well, thanks for the tip, buddy. I better get going, I think.” Dash smiled in what she hoped was a friendly manner.
Ember stepped aside to let her pass through the door. “Good luck to you, Miss Dash. When you see Scootaloo, would you tell her to come back home soon? I’d like to talk to her, too.”
“No problem. See you later,” Dash replied with forced cheer.
“Oh, and Miss Dash?” Ember added before she could take off.
“Yeah?”
“If I learn that you have misused my daughter’s affection for you, you and I will be having words, as adults. Have a nice day.” The door closed behind her. Dash took off and headed back towards Ponyville as fast as her wings could carry her.