Lower Mora'gryph, Kingdom of Gryphonia. August, 1252.
Scootaloo walked down the little dirt path, her wings twitching all the while. Each time a pony walked out from behind a tent, she flinched. She couldn't recall having been so nervous. In an hour, she would set out on her first official sortie for the Army of Northern Equestria. And before that...well. She would have an answer to the last three nights of sleepless wondering.
She arrived at Sweetie Belle's little tent, and then stopped. She ran through her little scripts in her head. Well, Sweetie Belle, you told me to... no, no, too passive. Maybe something like, I'm about to head out, and I wanted to... no, this is her idea, I should acknowledge that. Perhaps, “Sweetie Belle, I'm heading out and I want to know if you love me because I think I might love you?” No, way too direct. Maybe...
“Oh...wow.” A trembling voice came from inside the tent. “Okay. Well, come in, Scootaloo.” Scootaloo felt briefly nauseous. Aw, buckin' A, that last one was out loud, wasn't it? Well, time to mare up. She adjusted her cap, and walked in.
Sweetie Belle sat on her cot, an officer's cap sitting awkwardly on her fluffy mane. “Hi, Scootaloo,” she said, smiling nervously. She shifted over to one side of the cot. “Sit down, please.”
“Um...okay,” Scootaloo said, her courage evaporating. “I didn't mean to...”
“It's okay,” she said. She swung her feet over the side of the bed, and kicked them awkwardly. “Neither did I.”
Scootaloo looked confused for a second, then realized the mistake. “Oh, no! I was talking about what I just said outside.”
“Oh. Was it true though?”
“Well...I guess.”
Sweetie Belle sighed heavily. “...oh. I'm sorry, Scootaloo.”
Scootaloo felt her heart sink. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” she began, then stopped.
Scootaloo waited. Sweetie Belle said nothing.
“Well, what?”
Nothing.
“Sweetie Belle,” Scootaloo insisted. “'Well,' what?”
Sweetie Belle's eyes began to tear up. “I don't know, Scootaloo. I led you on and I don't know why.”
“What do you mean you led me on? I don't get it. I thought you were pretty clear. Were you lying?”
“No!” Sweetie Belle looked horrified. “No, no, no. Everything I said was true. I really do like you, a lot. You're my best friend in the world and I really don't want you to ever get hurt and I want to be friends with you forever and I really do want you to think about me before you do something that might hurt you because I really would be really really hurt if you got hurt. And you said you were going to go and put yourself in danger and I was really really scared you'd go and do something dumb!”
“But...” Scootaloo said, her face still betraying confusion. “But you acted like...like you liked me differently. Like you...you know.”
“I know! I don't know why!” She wiped her wet eyes. “Maybe I just wanted to make sure you'd listen to me!”
“But how did you know I'd...you know? I think having your best friend, like, hit on you would creep out most fillies, Sweetie Belle. And I mean...oh, Celestia, I don't know. I thought for sure...”
Sweetie curled into a little upright ball, and peeked over her knees.“Well... it's not like it's a secret, Scootaloo. I've noticed how you look at me.”
Scootaloo shook her head. “What? I haven't—I haven't—whatever you're saying I did! I haven't thought anything like that—not until you started flirting with me!”
“Sure you have,” she sniffed. “Ever since I got my cutie mark.”
“Well, yeah, that changed some things,” Scootaloo said, her temper rising, “but it didn't mean I, like, loved you or anything.”
“But you just said you did. Outside the tent. That couldn't have just started.”
“Well maybe I do and maybe I did!” Scootaloo threw up her hooves in agitation. “I don't know! I didn't think I did but then you acted weird and then I thought I did and now you're saying it was a trick and I don't know anything!”
“...yeah,” Sweetie said. “I don't know. But...it was wrong of me to make you think I did. Really wrong of me. I...I don't want to date you, Scootaloo.”
Scootaloo felt like she had been slapped in the face. She stared at Sweetie Belle, as if the next words out of her mouth might take the last ones back.
“I'm sorry, Scootaloo. But I really don't want to date you. I don't even think I like girls...like...like I guess, like you like girls. You're a good friend and I want you to stay safe and I feel really connected to you but...I think that's it.”
Scootaloo's heart dropped out. She felt her body begin to shake. And she put a hoof around Sweetie Belle's head, and guided her face to her own. And she kissed Sweetie Belle, an awkward kiss with mouth closed, her eyes squeezed shut, tears wetting the fur of both faces.
She dropped her hoof. Sweetie Belle didn't move, forward or backwards. Scootaloo pulled her head back a few inches and opened her eyes. Sweetie Belle was silent and stationary.
“I'm sorry,” Scootaloo whispered.
“Don't be,” Sweetie Belle whispered back. “But don't do that any more. I guess I owed you that for what I did. But we're even now, okay?”
“...okay,” Scootaloo said, her head swimming. “Can I kiss you again?”
“No,” Sweetie Belle said. “We're even. No more kissing.”
“How about on the cheek?”
“No, Scootaloo. No more.”
Scootaloo looked down at the floor. “So...not ever?”
“Probably not, no.”
“Probably not? So maybe yes?” She glanced up.
“I don't know, Scootaloo!” She seemed gripped by a sudden anger, and gestured wildly as she spoke.“I don't think so but I don't understand everything, okay? I'm new at all this and so are you and I don't know everything I'm feeling and what it all means but I'm pretty sure I don't want you to kiss me and I'm really sure I don't want to date you! I want to be friends with you and really good friends but that's all I want, really!” She took a deep breath, then calmed a bit. “Really. Is that okay?”
Scootaloo looked back down. She thought—or tried to. Then she said, “yes,” that word alone, and hoisted herself to her feet.
“Wait,” Sweetie Belle said. “We're still friends, right?”
Scootaloo said nothing, and left the tent.
“Wait! Please wait!” The tent flap fell shut.
Sweetie Belle fell back on her cot.
---
Scootaloo trudged onwards through the green-and-grey karst field, her hooves clopping against the exposed sheets of rock and pressing into the soft dirt. She kept her head down as she walked—partially to shield her eyes from the rising sun, but mostly out of misery.
She didn't understand it. A week ago she hadn't thought of Sweetie Belle as anything but a friend, and she had cherished that friendship. Now the thought of only being friends with Sweetie Belle seemed like a daily torture. Was this how it was supposed to go with love? Was this how it was for everypony else? And for that matter, was she in love or was this some stupid other thing? Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She kept trying to focus on the mission: searching for tracks, for broken grass, for the tell-tale scent of char and smoke signifying that a fire had been nearby, for any other sign of enemy activity. But she couldn't think of anything but Sweetie: Sweetie sitting on that cot, explaining that it was all an accident or a trick or some other thing, Sweetie saying that despite everything she had made her feel, they couldn't be together after all. And why did she kindle that desire in Scootaloo if she never intended to fulfill it? What kind of friend does that?
A butterfly flitted across under Scootaloo's nose: a bright purple-and-blue one. She watched it as it fluttered left, and then right, and then landed on her snout. She gently reached for it, but it effortlessly flitted around her hoof, and then settled again on her snout. She reached for it again; again it danced around her attempts to touch it. She narrowed her eyes, and grabbed at it more quickly. Again she was denied, and again it landed on her snout. She snorted, and flicked her snout up, sending the insect into the air. She then leaped at it, but it tumbled under her, and she landed a good two feet in front of it. She spun around and dived at it again, and this time it fluttered back, staying just out of reach. She jumped at it again and again, and each time it managed to flit just out of her grasp. Finally she screamed in frustration, and recklessly charged at it; the butterfly zipped away and out of sight, and she tripped wildly over a large rock hidden in the tall grass, and her face smashed into the dirt.
She lay where she fell for some time.
She was on her back, sadly watching a cloud drift through the sky, when she heard voices. Gryphon voices. She rolled over, as quietly as she could, flicking the dirt off her wingfeathers.
“Look,” one of them said, “I don't care if you're tired, because we're going to have to pick up the damned pace. We've got another fifty lion villages to hit, and the Mare is already sending her propaganda teams all over the place.”
“C'mon, man, I'm tired as heck. We been walkin' a week straight, and we ain't had nothin' to eat but lion cookin', and that's worse than what your mom feeds me the mornings after I screw 'er.”
“Then you should do a better job of it,” a third gryphon said. “She always gives me nice, juicy mutton.”
“Yeah, 'course she does,” the second one laughed, “but we're talkin' bout food.”
“Shut it, Gordon,” the first gryphon snapped. “And you too, Rollie. I don't care what either of you wingless wonders think.”
“It's Roland, Sarge, and my wings are fine.”
“Your name is whatever I feel like it is. Keep it up and you'll be Beth.”
“Well, Rollie reportin' for duty, then.”
“Damn straight," the sergeant said conclusively.
There was a pause. Scootaloo lifted her head, slowly, to watch them through the grasses.
“Your mom's still a whore, though,” Rollie said.
“Real funny, Beth,” the sergeant growled.
“Hey, guess what? Your mom called me lotsa things, too. She called me her little pony, in fact. Guess why? Hey, here's a hint, it's not cause I have hooves.”
“Beth, shut the hell up.”
“Want another hint? It's because she loves my big--”
There was a sharp crack as the sergeant slapped Rollie, who tumbled to the ground. Scootaloo winced. The sergeant then reared back on his hind feet, and kicked one of them into Rollie's stomach. Rollie gasped for air on the ground. Gordon watched with wide eyes.
“Now look here, Beth,” the sergeant shouted. “I don't know what they teach you overgrown cubs in whatever worthless pile of rocks you call your home mountain, but you're in the army now, and that means either got to grow some discipline or I've got to beat some into you. Now which'll it be?”
Rollie coughed. “I'll be good, Sarge.”
“Damn straight you will,” he spat. “That goes for you too, Gordon.”
“Yeah, a'course,” Gordon said with eyes wide.
“Now, let's start over, huh? The Grey Mare wants to hand our ancestral lands to the goddamned lions. So we've got to get them out of her path, or else they'll tear your momma to ribbons and make your sister into some lion's prostitute if she wants to eat. So let's show some hustle, huh? Cause I guarantee you that the Grey Mare isn't going to take a nice weekend fishing trip any time soon. I said hustle, Beth, get up already.”
“I still don't understand why we don't just kill 'em,” Gordon muttered. “Bandin 'em together seems like it'll backfire.”
“Well, we're not ponies, are we? I don't see any hooves on me, do you? No. We're gryphons, and the lions are our guests. And gryphons don't murder their guests out of convenience. Besides, they're more useful to us this way. They go down through the eastern coastline past Manehattan, and suddenly we've got an army in their homeland.”
“Yeah, but what if they defect?”
“You're sayin' the ponies wouldn't attack an army of forty thousand lions?”
“Yeah, I am. What if the lions switch over?”
“Then the ponies have to figure out how they're gonna feed forty thousand predators in the middle of their homeland, now don't they? Either way we win.”
“Sure thing, sarge.”
The gryphons began walking again. Scootaloo waited until they were a good distance away, and then began creeping in the opposite direction. She hadn't found an encampment, no, but surely the General would want to hear about this. A counter-invasion down the eastern border? Lions being evacuated into invading armies? They'd have to--
--suddenly, she heard a familiar high-but-strong voice ringing over a hill.
To arms, my ponies!
Form our batallions!
March on! March on!
And we shall free, our Equestria!
Scootaloo immediately began sprinting towards the voice, her wings propelling her forward, as she juked and jumped around and over rocks and boulders. At last she found Sweetie Belle, tackled her, and then held a hoof over her mouth.
“MZMMNLNN!” Sweetie tried to shout.
“Shhh,” Scootaloo hissed. “It'll be a miracle if they didn't hear you! What the heck are you doing out here? And whisper it!” She lifted her hoof off Sweetie Belle's mouth, but left it hovering as if she might need to plug her friend up again.
“Well,” Sweetie Belle whispered as she sat up, “you seemed really upset and I didn't want you to do anything dumb, so I found out where you were going and then came after you to let you know I still really cared about you.”
“How did you—but then how did you—how,” Scootaloo whispered back.
“Well, when you told me you enlisted so did I, and some things happened fast and now I'm Lieutenant Belle of the Propaganda Department. See?” She picked up her hat off the ground, and plopped it back on her head. “It's pretty much just what I was doing already, only now I'm getting a few bits a week for it and soldiers have to call me ma'am.” She giggled. “So then I went over to the reconnaissance tent and convinced some colt there to let me see your assignment.”
Scootaloo shook her head. “You wouldn't have clearance for that.”
Sweetie smiled, and fluffed her pastel mane with a hoof. “I think you'd be surprised what I can do to some ponies nowadays. I just smile and act real sweet and then they...” Then she blushed. “Oh! Um. No. I didn't mean you. Oh, no, Scootaloo, I'm sorry, I—oh. Oops.”
“Don't worry about it,” Scootaloo said sharply. “I—”
There was a rustling noise.
“Oh, man,” the pegasus whispered. “It's the gryphons. Okay, Sweetie, I'll distract 'em, you get the buck outta here. And look, I have something I need to tell you, that you can't forget, okay?”
Sweetie bit a lip. “Scoot, I know that, I already...”
“No! Listen to me! It's about the lions and—aw, buck a duck.” A gryphon emerged from the tall grass. “Run!”
“You're right,” Gordon shouted, “there was a pony singin' over here! I found 'em!” Sweetie Belle's eyes went wide, and she took off running as the gryphon curled his spine to pounce on her.
Scootaloo pawed the ground. She was about to leap at the gryphon, when she saw a purple-and-blue butterfly out of the corner of her eye, hovering between two little yellow flowers. She narrowed her eyes at the damned little thing--and then smiled.
Scootaloo leaped into the air, shouting, “hey hey hey!” Gordon's attention snapped towards Scootaloo. She winked at him, then flitted closer, right in front of him. He jumped to grab her, but she let herself drop underneath him, and kicked gently at him as he soared over her. Another gryphon—Rollie—came out of the grass, and launched into flight. Scootaloo began to slowly glide away, watching him the whole time. Rollie came charging in at half speed, but just before impact she snapped her wings, popped a foot to the side, and slapped him gently with a hoof as he went by.
By this point Gordon had gotten back to his feet, and charged at Scootaloo again, and again flung himself at her, this time harder than the last time. Again she sidestepped him, then did a midair cartwheel, repositioning her to jump off Rollie's skull as he came swooping in again, faster than before. For nearly a minute the three danced like this; the two gryphon soldiers charging ever-faster at Scootaloo; the pegasus floating and flitting and spinning and dancing as if the laws of momentum did not apply to her, always appearing within grasp yet always staying just out of reach.
Yet though she seemed to be bouncing about randomly, she kept a close eye on where she was, and a close eye on where they were. Rollie came diving in, his rage outpacing his caution, and Scootaloo again sidestepped him—yet this time instead of swooping past her, through the grass, and into the air, he streaked past her, through the grass, and into a half-concealed boulder. Gordon heard the crack of bone on rock, and he turned his head in time to see the orange pony deliver a coup-de-grace with a hoof.
He, too, charged at her, now in a blind fury. And this time, as she stepped aside, she kicked the side of his head with all her strength. He tumbled to the ground, unable to recover, and rolled to a stop. The gryphon grabbed his head with a talon, and tried to pick himself off the ground. Yet before he could, he saw the purple-maned pegasus soar over to his side. She glared at him, muttered something he didn't understand, then ended him with three sharp hind-kicks to the skull.
Scootaloo looked around. There had been three. Yet she had fought only two. She listened, but heard nothing. She jumped into the air, and began scanning around.
She felt a sharp pain in her leg, and the ground flew up to meet her. She crashed hard, cracking her body on a rock. She tried to get up, but her legs hurt far too much to move. She opened her eyes, and with great effort lifted her head. A short spear had pierced through her thigh and into gut, blood pouring from the points of entry. She dropped her head back to the ground.
Almost immediately a gryphon stood over her. “You're a clever one,” he said. “Certainly more clever than those worthless recruits. But you're not a soldier, are you? You're a child.”
“I'm not a child,” Scootaloo coughed, then spat out a mouthful of blood. “Haven't been for years.” She stared at him, eye to eye. “I'm a soldier.”
“Well then, soldier. I confess you'd be the first pony I've killed. I was hoping for a more formidable enemy.”
“I killed...two of yours,” Scootaloo coughed out. “And you kill a child?” She raised her head, and spat another mouthful of blood, this one landing on him. “Two to one. I win.” She dropped her head back down. “Now hurry up. This hurts.”
“Brave. Proud. Thank you for assuaging my guilt.” He pulled out the spear, and drove it forward again.
Yet this time, it missed her body entirely, cracking into the rock. And he tumbled to the ground, a white pony standing on his chest.
“Cover your ears, Scootaloo,” she yelled.
And then her horn glowed, and she screeched—one high sustained note, sung with a hundred voices, piercing and ringing. Scootaloo groaned in pain. The gryphon bent double and covered his ears with both claws. And then Sweetie Belle turned, and with a series of kicks to the forehead easily crushed the gryphon's unprotected skull.
She immediately ran over to Scootaloo's side.
“Thank you for saving me,” she unicorn said breathlessly.
“Don't mention it,” the pegasus replied.
“I'm sorry about the noise.”
Scootaoo raised her eyebrows. 'Yeah, that hurt. I didn't know you could do that.” She opened her eyes wider, as if trying to see something.
“It's a chorus," Sweetie Belle said, forcing enthusiasm. "It came with the cutie mark.”
“Hey...I'm kinda dying, I think," Scootaloo said quietly. "I'm feeling a little lightheaded and you're hard to hear.”
“Oh, Scootaloo, no, oh—“
“—look, what I was trying to say was...well, was that the lions are moving with the east and they're moving to the together...and...the lions...and...Mane...hatta...”
Sweetie looked around in panic. Scootaloo fell quiet.
“No you don't,” Sweetie Belle shouted. “No you bucking don't!” Her horn glowed, and she tore the uniform off the gryphon sergeant, and mocked up bandages and a tourniquet. And then she put little balls of cloth in Scootaloo's ears, and her horn glowed again, and she shouted for help with a hundred voices.
---
The tent was nearly empty. There was just Nurse Redheart, a heartbroken white unicorn, and an unthinking, unmoving pegasus.
“Is she dead?” Sweetie Belle asked. Nurse Redheart didn't answer. “Oh, I shouldn't have followed her,” the unicorn wailed. “It was so dumb of me!”
“Yeah,” Nurse Redheart said in a dry voice. “It was really, really dumb.”
Sweetie looked up at her, with tears in her eyes. “Oh,” she said plaintively, “why would you say something like that?”
“Because it was.” Sweetie blinked. Nurse Redheart's lips weren't moving, and she shook her head in confusion. Sweetie Belle looked back at Scootaloo.
The orange pony's eyes were still shut. “But who cares. Give me some water already,” the pegasus said, her voice raspy and forced. “I need water.”
“You're not dead?!” Sweetie shouted.
“I feel like it,” Scootaloo croaked. “Where's my water?”
Nurse Redheart ran off with a mumbled apology, fetched a pitcher of water, and brought it to Scootaloo. Sweetie both levitated the pitcher and lifted Scootaloo's head, and the pegasus drank.
“I'm so sorry,” Sweetie Belle said. “Oh, I'm so sorry, for everything, oh I've been so stupid in so many ways Scootaloo, I just—”
“Shut up,” Scootaloo said in a rattling voice. “The gryphons...are rounding up the lions and gathering them...into an army, and are going to invade along...the...eastern border so we don't use them against the gryphons...go tell the General.”
“It's okay. She knows. There were lots of documents on the bodies of the gryphons we killed.”
“I killed,” Scootaloo corrected.
“I killed one too. The one who threw the spear at you.”
“Oh. Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”
There was a silence. Nurse Redheart quietly excused herself.
“Hey, um, Scootaloo? I just thought you should know...”
Scootaloo shook her head sadly. “Sweetie Belle, you don't love me. Please don't pretend because you feel bad.”
“No, dummy. Not that. Look at your flank.”
Scootaloo tried to move her head to see her flank. She couldn't make it that far; her neck was too stiff. She realized that most of her limbs had been immobilized anyway—except, oddly enough, for the one that had been hit by the spear.
“Oh, right!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed, dashing to a supply trunk. “You're hurt. I'll get you a mirror.”
She came bounding back, and held the mirror so Scootaloo could see her hip. There, on the orange fur, was an image of a blue-and-purple butterfly between two yellow flowers.
“See! Your cutie mark,” Sweetie Belle bubbled. “And you got it because you're a really good flier and you saved me! I was so worried you'd die before you saw it!”
Scootaloo put her head back down. “Oh, man,” she whimpered. “Rainbow Dash will so make fun of me when she finds out I've got pretty much the same thing as Fluttershy.” Sweetie Belle sadly lowered the mirror.
Then Scootaloo thought a bit, and smiled to herself. “Well...actually...” she said, then looked back at Sweetie Belle. “I guess it was pretty awesome how it happened. Do you think I could take another look at it?”
Sweetie Belle grinned and raised the mirror again. Scootaloo contentedly examined her little butterfly until she fell back asleep.