Transcendence

by Corejo

VIII - The Day Thereafter

A warm tailwind had never felt so cold as it did when Scootaloo flew home from Cloudsdale.  Clouds drifted above and below, without a care in the world.  Hiccups and whimpers bubbled to the surface, loud despite the roar of the wind and Rainbow Dash’s words ringing in her ears.  She wiped away snot that trailed out of her nose.

A river shimmered in the noonday sun far below, silver like the ones she saw on her first flight.  She shut her eyes to flush away the thought of anything related to Rainbow Dash.

Ponyville would soon appear in its place, her house sitting happily where it always had.  Dad would be inside.  He would make everything better.  He always did.

She reopened her eyes to see Ponyville basking below as she had imagined.  It looked warm.  Houses and fields took their distinct features as she glided downward for the street.  

It accepted her like a friend in from the cold, and she hurried for her front door.  It opened at the touch of her hoof to reveal the living room, bright but warm with the earthy décor.  Dad wasn’t sitting in his usual spot, the beige pillow before the coffee table empty.  

“Dad?” she said, her voice not but a whisper.  She ran to the hallway, and called louder.  “Dad?”  Still no answer.  Her heart began racing.  He couldn’t be gone, too.  Not him.  She dashed to his room.  “Dad!”  The bathroom.  “Dad!”  Back into the hallway.  She trembled as she stared down it toward the empty living room, then her room.  She nudged the door open.

The room sat silent.  Hesitant steps brought her to bed, where she curled into a ball, and closed her eyes.

Go home, Scoot.  Go home...

She flinched, and opened her eyes.  In the light from the window, Racing medals glinted like little suns from where they hung on dresser and hooks about the room.

You aren’t good enough...

She rolled onto her back.  The sunlight cast little spiky shadows across the stucco ceiling, like reverse stars in a daytime sky.  They blurred, and she pressed her hooves into clenched eyes until blots appeared.

You never were.

Whimpers escaped her, and she grabbed her pillow to hold it tight and never let go.

The front door opened and shut.  Dad was home.  She wanted to see him, race out there and hug him, cry into his chest until everything was the way it should be.  But she didn’t move, nor make a sound.

His hoofsteps padded softly off the hallway carpet.  He was heading for his room.  Hopefully he would peek in and see her.

The padding stopped just outside her door.  “Scoot?”  Concern and confusion mixed in his voice.  “Scoot, are you alright?”  Her heart sped up when the padding turned to clomping along the hardwood of her room before returning to a padding on the area rug.  The hairs on her nape stood on end as he breathed right beside her bed.  “Scoot, talk to me.  What’s wrong?”

She flinched at the touch of his hoof.  Slowly, she turned her head to meet his eyes.  They matched the concern in his voice, and widened at the sight of her face.  She looked down.

“Rainbow Dash...”

Scootaloo bit back tears that tried to escape with each tremor of her body.  Tyco wrapped her in a hug.  The embrace was warm like she had hoped.  She snuggled into it, sniffling.  He smelled of paper and ink like he always did after work.

“Shh...” Tyco cooed.  “It’s alright.  I’m here.”  He rocked back and forth, a hoof stroking her mane.  A moment passed before Scootaloo calmed down, and Tyco gently held her to hoof length.  “What happened?”

Scootaloo looked away, ears drooped.  “I... I’m not good enough.”

“What?”  Tyco hunched down to look up into her downcast eyes.  “Not good enough for what?”

“F-For... For Rainbow Dash...”  The sentence hung in the air like a body from a noose.

“Scoot.”  His voice was level, almost demanding.  “What happened?”

The tremors resounded in Scootaloo’s legs to make sitting up difficult.  Like the balcony back in the Cloudiseum, sinking into the bed felt like a wonderful option.  She shifted her mouth to form the beginnings of her admission to failure.  It wretched its way out like the putrid thing it was.  

“I... lost.”

Fresh tears dribbled on her sheets, unable to be stopped by the clenching of eyes.  She felt herself pulled back into the loving fur of her father’s chest.

“It’s okay.” Tyco said.  “And you are good enough.  You’re the best flier I know.”

Scootaloo pushed herself away.  Her voice choked.  “No I’m not...”  Silence reigned between them for eternity.  Nothing could make her agree.  Not after today.  She was looking away from him—at the wall and occasionally the window—but could feel his eyes scrying the back of her neck.

“Scootaloo...”  Nothing in his voice had changed, but the way he used her full name instead of her nickname in such a soft voice made her wince.  “Is that what Rainbow Dash said?”

A lump formed in the back of her throat, and she swallowed with difficulty, slowly nodding.  Sniffles punctuated the following silence.  The desire to be wrapped up in his hooves again overtook her.  And he did just that.  Slow and steady, he stroked her mane back away from her face, which she pressed against him.  

“Shhh... It’s okay, Scoot.  Everything’s okay.”

Hiccups and tears made her words difficult to say.  “No it’s not.”  They rocked back and forth without speaking for a moment.  Scootaloo made no effort to resist.

“It is, Scoot.  I know it’s hard and I know how it feels,” Tyco said.  “I’ve been in the exact same situation.”

Scootaloo looked up.  “You... you have?”

“Mhmm.  My parents.  Well, more specifically my father, but yes.  The day I got my cutie mark, I came home...”  He looked askance, his face sagging as if weighed down.  “I remember my father silhouetted in the doorway.  I showed him my cutie mark... and all he said was, ‘I was waiting for my son to come home, but I see he never will.’  And he slammed the door in my face.”

Scootaloo winced as if it had happened to her.  “He didn’t let you come back in?”

Tyco didn’t immediately answer.  His face was strained with the memory.  Slowly, he shook his head.  “No.  Nopony did.  It was... It was scary.  I was alone.”  

It felt as if a weight were pressing down on Scootaloo’s chest.  How hard it must have been for him to live the greatest moment of his life... and then lose everything.  She put a hoof to his chest and smiled up at him.

His eyes met hers, and he let out a weak laugh, and his lips turned up in an embarrassed smile.  “And here I thought I was trying to comfort you,” he said.  He may not have known it, but his stories always did.

“Well,” he continued, “what I was gonna say was there was this gryphon named Tigoragan that I ended up living with.  He—”

Scootaloo’s eyes lit up.  “You lived with a gryphon?”  

“Y-yeah, I—”

“That’s so cool!”

Tyco smiled half heartedly.  “Well, I don’t really think ‘cool’ is the right word for him.  He was by far the meanest creature I’ve ever met.”

Scootaloo cocked her head.  “Wait.  If he was mean, then why did you live with him?”

Tyco turned his head aside, in thought.  “There’s a long story to it—I’ll tell you all about it later, sometime.  But what I’ve been trying to get at is—in that entire city full of ponies, none of them cared about what happened me.  He was the only one there for me when nopony else was—didn’t matter how mean he could be.  He became the one I looked up to on how not to be.”  He made a vague shrugging motion with his shoulders for emphasis.  “And he even said that.  What’s important isn’t who you look up to, but how you look up to them.  What they do to and around you.

“Some ponies, like Rainbow Dash, might hurt you.”  He traced a hoof down her cheek.  “But others, like me, will always be there for you.”  His hoof brought her eyes to his.  Bright and true they were, like the shining gates of heaven.  “No matter what.”

Her heart gave a flutter, as if his words were too good to be true.  Slowly, she opened her mouth to ask with the softest of voices, “Promise?”

He traced a hoof down her cheek, which she leaned into.  “Promise.”

Scootaloo threw her hooves around him.  He never broke his promises.

“That’s my girl.”  She felt his hoof rub up and down her back.  “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, dad.”

Scootaloo didn’t know how long she held him.  She could have stayed there forever.

“You’ve been through a lot today,” he said.  “You wanna go down to Sugarcube Corner and get something nice?”

Scootaloo looked away.  She shrugged weakly before nodding, and he ruffled her mane.

“Oh, come on,” he said.  “I bet it’ll cheer you right up.  Let me go grab some bits and we’ll get goin’.”  After a quick kiss on her forehead, he left the room for his own.

She followed him with her eyes across the hallway and out of sight.  Dressers shifted open and shut, and coins clattered atop what was presumably his nightstand.  He left his room and poked his head in hers.

“Ready?” he asked, a smile on his face as if their conversation had never happened.

Scootaloo returned a smile, though it was far from genuine.  He was trying hard to cheer her up.  It was quite obvious, even to her.  Having that opportunity was rare in and of itself, his job always so demanding of him.  A day with dad to forget everything wrong.  She nodded, smiling.  “Mhmm.”

They left home and trotted down the street.  The heat of day had relented, and ponies ran about their business, some even smiling at them as they passed.  It was reminiscent of the wonder she felt her first time walking alone through town.  The feeling followed her to the far end of Ponyville, where the smell of sugar and baking sweets grew strong in the unmoving air.  It made her flutter her wings.  

A turn of the corner brought the bakery into view, its gingerbread architecture as tantalizing as the goodies within.  It bustled with customers all entering and exiting and children running around on sugar highs and others crying at dropped cones, their parents consoling but unsuccessful.

They took their place in line just inside the door, much further back than she had anticipated; the line snaked around the store.

“I’m sure it won’t be long,” Tyco said, also looking around.

“Mhm...”

The line moved forward consistently, Pinkie Pie working at blinding speeds behind the counter to paint smiles on everypony’s faces as they were helped.  At this pace, Dad would be right, but it didn’t help how she felt.  Ice cream never won a Best Young Flier’s competition.  Neither did she.  Weight collected in her stomach, dragging her shoulders down with it.

You aren’t good enough.

Scootaloo looked around at the other foals and their parents—both parents—and they all looked so happy together.  Unfamiliar feelings churned in her stomach.  One filly hugged her mother.  Scootaloo huffed and looked the other way, but glanced back out the corner of her eye, her heart knotting.  She had never truly known that sensation.  Rainbow Dash had come close, but after the events of that morning...

What was it like?

“Hiya, Scoot!  How ya doin’?” came the unmistakable voice of Pinkie Pie.  She leaned atop the counter’s rounded display case that housed dozens of colorful, tasty treats.  A gasp escaped her.  “Oooh, didn’t you go to Cloudsdale today for the Best Young Flier’s competition?  Did you see Rainbow Dash?”  She leaned across the counter, eyes glistening.

Scootaloo shrank away and forced a smile.  “Uh, yeah...”  It took all her effort to keep the smile from cracking.

“Oh, I bet it was super duper fun getting to see her again and all the other Wonderbolts and how fast they are.”  Pinkie Pie slid back to her side of the counter, hooves mimicking pegasus racers as she made loud wooshing sounds.  

Tyco stepped forward, head aside with a smile that treaded the line between amusement and annoyance.  “Pinkie, can we order something, please?”

She looked down from her hooves above her head as if awoken from a strange dream, and then smiled as gaily as ever.  “Of course, silly.  It’s not like anypony was stopping you.”  Tyco frowned.

Scootaloo held back a sigh.  Pinkie Pie could be Pinke Pie, but not here and now.  And she definitely didn’t need to say that name, either.  Patience marked her father’s face as he looked down, waiting for her to order.  She complied, if only to make him feel like he was accomplishing his goal.  Sugarcube Corner suddenly felt less fun than it already did.

“Can I get an ice cream cone in a cup, please?”

Pinkie Pie saluted as if it were an order from Celestia herself.  “Yepperoonie!  One ice cream cone in a cup coming right up.”  She snorted a laugh before zipping into the kitchen and returning lightning fast with a vanilla cone.  She then procured a cup from the cabinet beside the display case and unceremoniously plopped the cone into it.  “Here ya go!  I know it’s your favorite!”  She smiled at Tyco.  “Anything else?”

“No, that’ll be it,” Tyco said.

“Alrighty.  Enjoy!”

He paid, and the two took a seat in the corner of the store.  Scootlaoo stared at her ice cream as it sat on the table before her.  It seemed to stare back, bored and unappetizing.  She lost her desire to eat it; though, her father’s smile compelled her to be polite.  She smiled back anyways.

“You know, I remember the first time we were in here.  Do you?”  His voice was soft, tinted with mirth.

“Mhm.”  Of course she did.  Pinkie Pie’s welcome wagon wasn’t exactly forgettable.  Neither was the “Welcome to Ponyville” party.  She shuddered.  That many ponies should never be crowded into such a small room.

“Yeah, it was a really nice party, wasn’t it?”

No, it really wasn’t.  She neither liked sardines nor being packed like one—especially while being told to dance and play games.  “Mhm...”  She took a bite of her ice cream.

“Hey, you say that like you didn’t have fun.”  He cocked his head.  “Did you?”

Scootaloo didn’t answer for a moment, deciding whether or not to tell the truth.  “Eh,” and a shrug became her choice.

“Wha-haha, so you—” he looked over his shoulder before turning back to whisper.  “So you didn’t like that party?”  He shook his head, chuckling.  “And this whole time I thought you loved Pinkie Pie’s parties...”

Scootaloo raised the ice cream from the cup and let it plop back in, eyes absently following.  “It’s not her parties, really, it was just kinda... that one.”

“Huh.”  He tapped his hoof on the table, the faintest of smiles on his lips.  “Well, just don’t tell her that.”  

Again, Scootaloo let his words hang in the din of the bakery, then: “Mhm.”

“Scoot...”

She looked up.  His face was pained as if a knife slowly dug into his chest.  It hurt to know it was because of her, but she couldn’t help the way she felt.  All she wanted was for everything to go back to normal.  With the last reserves of her energy, she managed a smile.  “I’m okay, dad.  I... I—”

“Scoot!”

She tensed, withdrawing from the direction of the voice before realizing it was Applebloom’s.  She and Sweetie Belle stood in line at the far end of Sugarcube Corner, both smiling and waving.  Applebloom wore a pair of empty saddlebags  They cut out from line to run toward her.

“How’d the competition go?” Applebloom asked.

The eyes of many ponies around them looked her way.  Breathing became a conscious effort beneath the stares that demanded an answer more loathsome than turpentine.  She looked to her father, who shared a private grimace with her.  It hurt to know how much he empathized.

“It went... alright...”  Scootaloo couldn’t look them in the eyes.  Along with everyone else she knew, there was no doubt in their minds that she would have won.

“Alright?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Yeah, what do you mean, ‘alright’?” Applebloom added.  “What happened?  I thought you were supposed to spend all day in Cloudsdale with Rainbow Dash after you won.”

There they were.  The words she herself had touted in the weeks before, straight from her friend’s mouth.  They were happy words, but they turned her stomach like rotten cabbage.

She must have unknowingly given a repulsive gesture, for Applebloom and Sweetie Belle both blanked and said, “Oh...”

Scootaloo shrank away.

“Hey, i-it’s alright, Scoot,” Applebloom said.  “It just means you get to spend the day with us!”  She was giving a huge smile when Scootaloo dared a glance.  “Come on,” she continued, “Sweetie Belle and I are helpin’ Applejack bake some muffins.”  She hefted her shoulders to indicate the saddlebags.

A chill ran up Scootaloo’s spine.  She looked nervously at her father, who smiled warmly.  He nodded at her friends.

“Go on, have fun,” he said.  “I’ll be at home if you need me, okay?”

Scootaloo hesitated.  It felt as if he were pushing her away, in spite of everything that had happened.  He gave another nod toward her friends.  

She sighed.  “Alright.”

The three waited in line to buy flour for the muffins they were soon to bake.  Pinkie Pie still working at top-notch speed, they left in good time for Sweet Apple Acres.

“So, what exactly happened, Scoot?” Applebloom asked as they turned down Stirrup Street toward the farm.  Flour sprinkled out the top of her bulging saddlebags with every step.

Scootaloo walked with downcast eyes.  The cloud within the arena danced in her vision along the pebbles and dirt beneath her hooves.  Wind whipped about her, ripping her tornado to shreds.  A ringing in her ears made it hard to envision everything that had happened.  “I don’t know.”

“Well, it had to be something,” Sweetie Belle said.  Her voice was muffled with a bite of cupcake she had bought from Sugarcube Corner.

“Yeah...”  It indeed had to be something, but what it was Scootaloo didn’t know.  All she remembered was how weak the tornado felt, and the resounding thought: was the air not thick enough?  Everything had happened so fast.  If only she could go back in time and watch—see what went wrong.

“It’s alright, though.  Right, Scoot?”

Scootaloo didn’t have the courage to look Applebloom in the eye.  “Mhm.”  She heard the faintest of huffs from her friend, but none of them spoke the rest of the way.

“Applebloom?  Is that you?” Applejack called from the living room as the kitchen’s screen door slapped shut behind the three.

“Yeah, sis, it’s us!”  Applebloom set her saddlebags on the central table and wiped away sweat from her brow.

Scootaloo took a seat and leaned against the cabinet under the sink.  Out the corner of her eye she could see Sweetie Belle rummaging through the fridge and Applebloom grabbing measuring cups from a drawer.  The way they moved and talked—the springs in their steps and lightness of voice—felt distant.  They were in their own little world revolving around hers.  

The floorboards creaked to announce Applejack’s entrance.  Scootaloo looked up to see her smile.  

“Well, I didn’t figure you’d be joinin’ us, Scoot,” she said.  “Thought you were supposed to be in Cloudsdale with Rainbow Dash.”

Scootaloo leaned further into the cabinet door, its wood cool and rough to the touch.  It was as if everypony wanted to rub her face in her own words—like she deserved it or something.

“Well, we’re glad you’re here, Scoot.  Can’t bake Crusader muffins without all the crusaders.”

“Mhm...”  

Hooves clomped toward her, stopping just short.  Scootaloo felt a hoof raise her chin, bringing her eye to eye with Applejack.  Her lips were turned up in a smile, eyes tensed in concern, voice soft as linen.  “Whatever happened, you know you can talk to us about it.  You’re still Scootaloo to us—even if you didn’t win.”  She gave her a gentle shake.  “You wanna help Sweetie Belle get the ingredients from the fridge?”

Scootaloo looked down at her hooves, then sighed.  “Okay.”

The rest of her time at Sweet Apple Acres went by in a daze.  Her movements were reactive and mechanical—mixing, pouring, stirring, baking.  Saying farewell, walking home, opening the door.  The sweet flavor of wheat and sugar faintly registered on her tongue when she shut the door behind herself—slightly burnt.  It wasn’t until her father said something that she came to.

“Huh?” she said.

He was sitting on his cushion in front of the coffee table, papers spread before him, smiling.  “I said, did you have fun?”

“Oh.  Yeah, I guess.”  Slowly, she started for her room, her mind returning to the haze he had torn it from.

“Hey,” he said as she entered the hallway.  She turned to look at him.  His face seemed both tensed and relaxed.  “Come here.”  Nothing in his voice denoted demand, but the simplicity of it provoked an instinctive drive to comply.  She stopped beside him, eyes never losing his.  He hugged her.

“I love you, Scoot.  Never forget that.”

Scootaloo didn’t return the gesture.  She felt drained from everything that had happened, emotionally and physically.  A half smile came to her as a last vestige of her reserved energy.  “Thanks, dad.”  She pulled out of his grasp and, after showing him her smile, headed for bed.

Her room was dark and cool in the waning twilight.  The medals about her room danced in a slight breeze coming in from the window and played a sad, lonely tune.  She lay herself on the bed and stared at the ceiling, as she had earlier that day.

You never were.

The final phrase of Rainbow Dash’s condemnation struck a high chord.  All those days.  All those nights.  All those times they had flown together.  After all was said and done, they truly meant nothing to her.

Rainbow Dash had been so proud, unendingly so.  But she no longer cared.  What had been a simple mistake became a point of loathing—a crime—deserving of no less than severance.

Scootaloo rolled over and looked at the calendar on her nightstand.  It held no remorse for the large, circled date it glared in her face.  She closed her eyes to sleep, to push herself past the rut she was stuck in, but the minutes passed like hours with no succor.

Darkness had completely overtaken the sky when she reopened her eyes.  Stars twinkled outside her window, and the wind had died down.  As she lay belly-up in bed, the desire to stare out at them consumed her.  They called to her like sirens.  A moment passed before she was no longer content merely looking out her window.

She got out of bed and headed for the hallway.  Her father’s quiet snoring was audible through his bedroom door, and it was eerily quiet in the living room.  

Opening the front door and closing it behind her without a sound, she sat on the stoop to look up at the stars.  They were brilliant and bright, like the purest of diamonds sewn into the blackest of cloaks.  Dad always liked stargazing.  He had said it reminded him of Starshine.

And as Scootaloo sat alone in the nighttime stillness, she sighed, thinking the same.