Scootaloo closed the door behind her and walked downstairs, a chill running through her. The staircase she was walking down right now was actually the same one as had been in her dream. When her parents died, Vinyl had been living in a small apartment, and had decided to move in with her, rather than vice-versa.
This meant she hadn't had to adjust to living in a new house, but it did mean it was full of memories for her. She gave the air a good sniff as she walked, and the smell of something delicious wafted up. Octavia must be making breakfast. It smelled wonderful.
That, of course, was one way she knew Octy was making it. She would have been smelling smoke if Vinyl had been cooking.
As she entered the living room, Vinyl was sitting by the turntable, sorting through records. She looked up as Scootaloo came down the stairs. "Morning Scoots! Feeling better?"
You know, she actually was a bit. The nightmare had been painful for her, but her talk with Princess Luna had really helped.
Her muscles still were aching a little, but were a lot better than yesterday, too. She flexed a wing experimentally. Of course, the base of her wings felt kind of tingly for some reason. "Sorta."
Vinyl kept looking through the pile of records in front of her. She paused at one of them.
"You know, I haven't played this in a long time," she said, pulling it out of the stack. "I think it's time to bring it back out."
Her horn glowed electric blue, and the record came out of its sleeve, floating over to the record player. As the record began to play, Scootaloo immediately recognised the song. It was a cover of "Mister Blue Sky", and had only been on the Flaming Tulips' final album.
The band had actually disbanded after her mother's death. Ruby Sunshine had been their lead vocalist and written most of their hits, and they just couldn't replace her. This was an album they'd thrown together while disbanding, all of alternate tracks, and unreleased recordings that they had sitting around.
There wasn't a real theme or much coherence to the album, and it had a lot more covers than was typical of their others, but it was fun anyways. Especially when it switched over to a cover of "Ballroom Blitz".
Scootaloo just couldn't help herself. She started in on her best air guitar routine, and began rocking out. She even started singing along, though she knew she wasn't exactly the best singer.
"And the mare in the back said 'Everypone attack!' and it turned into a ballroom blitz." she sang, loudly, though not as offkey as she would have once. "And the filly in the corner said, 'Girl, I'm gonna warn ya, it's going to turn into a ballroom blitz'.'"
Just as she was starting to get really into it, Octavia walked in, shaking her head. "Alright, Vinyl, loud rock music again first thing in the morning? Really?"
Then she noticed Scootaloo doing her best grimace with an air guitar solo. "Oh. Never mind then. Scootaloo, once this song is done, would you mind setting the table? Breakfast is just about ready."
Scootaloo thought to herself, Breakfast. Rock and Roll.
"I made pancakes," Octavia announced. Mmmm, pancakes. Lets see. Pancakes, lovely pancakes. The Ballroom Blitz.
Her thought process was interrupted by a loud rumbling from her stomach. Breakfast it was.
She reluctantly ended her air guitar routine, and followed Octavia over to the kitchen. There she tossed a tray on her back, and Octy started loading it down with plates, silverware, and glasses. Scootaloo spread out her wings a bit, and used them to keep the tray balanced.
She slowly walked back to the living room, stopping any time that the weight on her back shifted. Once there, she started setting places at the table. There was a plate left over when she was done, so she took it back to the kitchen.
Seeing the extra plate, Octavia started piling pancakes on it, and set down a container of butter and maple syrup on the tray as well. Scoots shrugged mentally, headed back, and put everything in the middle of the table.
Octavia came in, and placed a pitcher of orange juice on the table, then sat down. Scootaloo took this as her cue, and settled down at the table as well. Eying the huge stack of pancakes, she shrugged and started heaping them on her plate.
Vinyl came over and joined them. Scootaloo liberally slathered her pancakes with butter and maple syrup, and started munching on one of them enthusiastically. Octavia made the best pancakes, at least, in her opinion.
After messily devouring one stack, she started in on another. Octy seemed to have made lots of them today, possibly because she knew Scootaloo hadn't gotten dinner.
Once she started slowing down, Octavia spoke up.
"Scootaloo, I seem to recall you were planning on stopping over by the library today to talk with Twilight?"
"Mmmph," Scootaloo quickly swallowed the rest of the pancake in her mouth and tried again. "Yeah, she's been researching my problem, and I was going to see what she's come up with."
"Alright, dear. In that case, why don't I take you over to the library after breakfast? I wanted to talk with her briefly anyways."
Uh oh. Scootaloo could easily imagine what Octavia wanted to talk about. Maybe she hadn't dodged her questions from yesterday that well after all.
"You don't need to do that," she said nervously. "I'll be fine."
"It'll be no trouble at all. I insist."
Oh, hoofclippings, Scootaloo thought, then reminded herself for the millionth time that it wasn't a real swearword. It seemed to fit so well sometimes, though.
"Um, are you sure you don't have any concerts lined up for today?" she asked hopefully.
"No, that concert was next week, dear."
"I've got a late night gig lined up myself, though." Vinyl chipped in.
Nothing new there. A lot of Vinyl's gigs were late night, leaving her with Octy. Unless she also had something lined up. Scootaloo had been able to get away with an awful lot in the past just due to neither of them having been available at the time.
She supposed if Octavia was set on interrogating Twilight, there wasn't much she could do about it. Besides, she hadn't done anything wrong. She actually felt Twilight should get some grief over what had happened. She just wanted to make sure she still had her help afterwards.
"Well, all right. I'm not sure if she'll be ready yet, though," Scootaloo said. "I think she'd said to come over this afternoon."
"I'm sure she won't mind you coming over earlier and helping you with her research," Octavia responded. "It is for your benefit, after all."
"Do you think I should stop by and see if Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom want to help as well?" she asked. "Maybe we could get our cutie marks as research assistants."
The expression on Octavia's face at this was all Scootaloo could have asked for. Actually, she knew Apple Bloom was busy at the farm all day, though Sweetie Belle might have been free, but Octavia didn't need to know that.
"I'm not sure that is the best idea, dear," she said mildly. "Twilight wasn't expecting the others over, after all."
Well, she didn't really want to have to walk all the way over to Sweet Apple Acres, knowing that Apple Bloom wasn't available. She let it go.
"Yeah, I suppose not."
She noticed she was the only one still eating, and quickly finished up the pancakes on her plate. She'd been pretty hungry.
"Could you clear the table for me, Scootaloo?" Octavia asked. "You don't actually need to wash the plates, just put them in the sink and rinse them off. Then we'll get going."
Scootaloo sighed, and hauled away all the dirty dishes while Vinyl went back to the living room and changed records.
"It's astounding. Time is fleeting..."
Oh, that's what Vinyl's gig tonight was. She'd actually heard Sweetie Belle singing this song once. When she'd asked, it had turned out that her sister and Fluttershy had gone to see the show recently. From her description of their costumes, Scootaloo had thought it'd be cool to check out some time.
Octavia had sort of nipped that idea in the bud, though, telling her it wasn't for young fillies. And since Vinyl usually ended up running the music, if she went, she'd almost certainly get caught. Which was a shame, as it would have been a perfect Cutie Mark Crusaders outing. And what if one of their special talents was related to the Rocky Horror Picture Show?
Moot point, though.
She finished with the dishes, and put what was left of the pancakes into the fridge.Then she ducked into her room for her saddlebags, and headed to the living room, where Octavia was waiting. They let Vinyl know they were leaving, and then headed off for the library.
Scootaloo took her scooter along, walking it over, and parked it outside. Reaching the library, Octavia raised a hoof to knock at the door, but Scootaloo stopped her.
"Octy, you realise this is a library? Within business hours? You don't need to knock. If it was closed, there'd be a sign."
Octavia paused. "It is a home, too. I would think it would be polite, at the very least, to knock before entering."
"There are signs all over the place inside asking ponies to be quiet. I think it'd be all right."
A voice came from behind the door. "The door's unlocked, you two. Are you going to come on in, or do I need to wait for a knock first?"
"We'll be right in, Spike," Scootaloo called out. Octy finally went ahead and opened the door and they walked in. Spike was on the other side, waiting for them.
"About time. I saw both of you approaching from a window, but you never came in."
"Octy's not used to libraries," Scootaloo said, grinning.
"Scoots!"
"No sweat. Twilight's still in full research mode, but I'm sure she'd welcome a helping hoof. In the meantime, um," He looked over at Octavia, "maybe I should get you a library card?"
As Spike pulled out a bunch of paperwork for her to sign, Scootaloo started over to where Twilight was, but stopped about halfway. "Sweetie Belle?"
Sweetie Belle looked up from a book she had been studying.
"Hi Scoots!" she said happily.
"Hi. Um, what are you doing here?"
"It's a library, what do you think I'm doing here?" she said, and gestured to the book.
Scootaloo groaned. She supposed after the scene with Octavia, she had that one coming. She looked closer at the book Sweetie Belle was reading.
"A Beginners Guide To Magic?"
"Yeah," she said. "I've just gotten really aggravated recently with not even being able to levitate anything, so I thought I'd read up on it. Twilight seemed really busy, but Spike thought I could start with this book."
Scootaloo's wings flared up for a moment. "I know just what you mean."
"What brings you to the library, though?" she asked. "I don't really see you with books often."
Scootaloo lowered her voice and got closer to Sweetie Belle. "You remember that doctors appointment I had a few days ago?"
"Yeah." She frowned. "It seemed like you'd been kinda depressed and avoiding us since then, actually."
Scootaloo gave an embarrassed shrug. "I might have been. The doctor told me that I had a pretty good chance of never being able to fly."
"Wow. Scoots, I'm sorry." She put down the book and wrapped herself around Scootaloo in a hug. She flushed, but endured it. From long experience, she knew there was no getting out of one of Sweetie Belle's hugs.
"Anyway, I'm not giving up that easily, and Twilight said she'd help research anything that could help my flying."
"Well, count me in. Maybe I can get some help with my magic along the way," she said, tucking the book in her saddlebag. "I'm not sure this was helping anyways."
The two of them wandered on over to Twilight. She was at a desk, three books floating in midair. First she looked at one, then another, and jotted down notes with a quill and parchment. As Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle entered her field of vision, the books set themselves down on the desk below.
"Scootaloo! I wasn't expecting you here so early!" She looked over at her friend. "And you brought Sweetie Belle along as well?"
"Actually, she was already here, reading up on learning magic."
"Oh?" Twilight looked embarrassed for a moment. "I must not have seen her come in."
She glanced in Sweetie Belle's direction. "Did you need any help?"
"Well, Spike found a book for me, but I wasn't getting anywhere with it," she said dejectedly. "But when I saw Scoots come in, I figured I could help her out instead."
"Oh," she said, then brightened. "No matter. I could use some help from both of you."
She looked at Scootaloo. "I do have one question, though."
"Shoot."
She gestured towards a small stack of really old-looking books, all tattered and worn.
"These arrived this morning with a note from Princess Luna. Any idea why she wants me to devote my full attention to your problems with flying?"