//------------------------------// // Summer Sun // Story: Collab Cage Mini-monthly June - Memories and Moments: Endless Summer // by The Collab Cage //------------------------------// Summer Sun By: Admiral Biscuit The Summer Sun Celebration had come and gone. Even without the excitement of the Princess visiting Ponyville, the town had been busy and festive. There had been all sorts of events, culminating in a weekend carnival, complete with a ferris wheel. Scootaloo had ridden it fifteen times.  It was kind of like flying, if she really used her imagination. But that was all in the past. True, it was only a week past, but to a filly, a week might as well have been a year. The Summer Sun Celebration not only served as a celebration of the summer, it was also a signal to families that it was time to go on vacation. Sweetie Belle and Rarity had been gone the longest—they had gone to Baltimare to watch the festivities there. The Apples had taken the train to Appleoosa to visit Braeburn. Dinky's family had left shortly after, bound for Manehatten to visit their more distant relatives. Rumble and Thunderlane went to Los Pegasus. In short, the park was mostly empty, save for a single orange furred, purple maned pegasus filly lying listlessly on the green, green grass of the park. Her scooter was tipped over beside her, with her helmet tossed carelessly to one side. All of her friends were gone on vacation. Even Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were gone. It was a testament to her boredom that she included her sworn enemies on the list of ponies who were absent. She looked up into the perfectly cloudless blue sky. It wasn't the first time she had, and it wouldn't be the last. Naturally, she wanted to get a glimpse of her idol, but any pegasus would have been better than the vast blue emptiness. She vaguely remembered hearing something about a weather conference. It seemed an odd time to hold it, since there wasn't any weather, but maybe that was the point. She sighed deeply. What fun was summer if there wasn't anypony to spend it with? For a moment, she longed for school to start again—she could play with her friends at recess, and— School was not to be thought of. She clamped down on the notion. Rainbow had told her that if she paid too much attention in school, she might wind up an egghead like Twilight. She didn't think that was true—Apple Bloom said that an education was valuable, but it was the words of a filly against the words of a mare. She flopped over on her back. The vast openness of the sky beckoned to her, but it was unreachable. The best she could manage was falling through it. Deep down, she knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with her inability to fly, but she didn't know what. It wasn't a subject she normally dwelled on. After all, her best friends were ground-bound. Scootaloo sighed again. So much free time. So much crushing boredom. She closed her eyes, desperately wracking her brain to come up with something to do. "Vat do ve haf here?" Scootaloo tilted her head back and snapped open her eyes. Even before she spotted the octet of upside-down legs in her vision, she knew who was talking. Aloe—or was it Lotus?—was the only pony she'd ever heard with that kind of accent. Sweetie Belle said that Rarity had told her once that the spa twins came from somewhere far away, although she couldn't remember where. "Is sad pony." The blue one looked down at her. "Tell me, mazs pony, vy you is sad." "All my friends are on vacation," she said. "There's nothing to do." "Hmm." The twins shared a look. "Ve haf something mazs pony can do. You vait here. Ve vill be back." Scootaloo rolled over onto her barrel. "Um, ok. How long will you be?" "Ve von't be many time." They flicked their tails and trotted off towards the town proper. Watching the pair exit the park, Scootaloo frowned. The twins were a little weird, and it wasn't just their accents. The blue one did all the talking—she'd never heard the pink one say anything at all. Not that she spent much time around them, of course. Rainbow told her that only fussy ponies went to the spa, not cool ponies. Scootaloo desperately wanted to be a cool pony. Still, she'd seen Rainbow there a few times, although the pegasus usually came and went rather quickly. Maybe it was still cool to visit the spa if she didn't enjoy the experience. She'd had to go the the dentist before, and that wasn't fun. Especially since the doctor gave out lollipops, but the dentist handed out toothbrushes at the end of an exam, which was just cruel. "Ve is back." If anything, Aloe or Lotus' voice was even more incomprehensible, no doubt because she had a letter clamped between her teeth. "Ve see you haf a scooter, vich is gut. Ve vant you to take letter across town to Fluttershy. Is important. You know vere is Fluttershy house?" "Yes, ma'am." Scootalloo slipped on her helmet. "I'll be there in a flash." "You must not let anypony delay you, is important." She hoofed over a half-bit coin. "For zis errand. Now go!" With a furious buzzing of her wings, Scootaloo rocketed across the park, weaving around bushes just because she could. She had the letter clamped firmly in her teeth; the coin was tucked into the liner of her helmet. As she rode, she wondered what the spa twins had to do with Fluttershy that they would need her to rush a letter across town. She could come up with nothing. But it was kind of exciting to have . . . a mission! She swerved around ponies going about their business in the market, imagining that they were all trying to stop her. Maybe the twins were spies. They could pass messages along to . . . well, to anypony at all. Most mares visited the spa . . . it was hard to imagine why else Fluttershy would spend so much time there. And Photo Finish had had a funny accent, too. What if Fluttershy was . . . a secret agent! She dodged Berry Punch, envisioning her hooves reaching out to wreck the scooter. A quick buttonhook around Carrot Top's stall avoided an imaginary beam of magic from Pokey Pierce's horn, and her dart through a covered alleyway would get any pursuing pegasi off her tail. She shot clear of town, blasting down the dirt path that led towards the Everfree—and Fluttershy's modest abode. Barely ten minutes after she had left the spa twins, she skidded to a stop outside the treehouse. She leaned her scooter against a wall and began pounding her hoof on the front door. "Message from the spa twins," she muttered as the door opened. "Oh, um, I wonder what they want." Fluttershy gently took the letter. "Um, you can come in. Let me get you a drink of lemonade. You look thirsty." She led the filly over to her small table, pushed aside a half-prepared salad, and promptly set a tall glass in front of her. She carefully filled it from an ewer she had in her icebox, then sat across from the pegasus and opened the letter. Scootaloo noticed a small piece of paper fall out, which the pegasus quickly slid aside, blushing slightly. When she had finished reading, she looked up at the filly wide-eyed. "Oh my. Um, as soon as you finish your lemonade, I have something for you to do, um if it's okay with you." "Sure." Scootaloo nodded eagerly. Maybe it would be something cool. On the other hoof, this was Fluttershy, so probably not. "I . .. um, I need you to go to the vet. She . . . er, she has a, um, medicine that I need. I mean, um, she doesn't have it yet. But she can make it, um, if she knows I need it." "Medicine?" Scootaloo looked skeptical. "What kind of medicine?" "Oh, it's . . . um, for a ferret. He's . . . sick. He coughs. It's cough medicine. For a ferret." As she spoke, her eyes darted around the room, looking at everything except the orange filly. "Does he have a cold?" Scootaloo looked outside skeptically. "It's the middle of the summer." "No . . . I mean, yes. Yes, he has a cold. It's a summer cold. They're the worst kind. That's why he needs special medicine. Um, from the vet." "Oh. Well, I better go tell her, then." Scootaloo drank the rest of her lemonade, then headed towards the door. "Do you need me to bring it back?" "Um . . . no. It has to be prepared first. She just needs to know that I need her to make it." "That doesn't sound too urgent." "Oh, but it is," Fluttershy insisted. "If his cough gets any worse, he could . . . um, he could not be able to eat." At those words, Scootaloo's stomach rumbled. She suddenly remembered she hadn't eaten yet, either. Maybe she'd get some fries with the half-bit Aloe—or Lotus—had given her. She jumped back on her scooter and headed towards town. Had she looked back, she would have seen Fluttershy take to the sky with a determined look on her face, but she never turned. The vet's office smelled funny. There were weird potions arranged on the walls. Scootaloo tapped her hoof impatiently—the receptionist had muttered something about the doctor being in the middle of a procedure. Scootaloo wasn't sure what that was, but it sounded important. Finally, the vet came out after what seemed like an eternity but was really only five minutes. "Hello, Scootaloo," she said warmly. "What brings you by?" "Fluttershy said she has a coughing ferret with a summer cold. She said that you would know what kind of medicine it needs." "I do." The vet looked at her thoughtfully. "Would you like to help me make it?" "Sure!" Scootaloo brightened. Maybe she could get a cutie mark in potion making! True, they had made the love potion which had turned out to be a love poison, but she hadn’t done much of the work herself. “The formula doesn't call for a pegasus feather, does it?" "Nope! Come on, I'll show you the lab." An hour later, Scootaloo finally emerged. The time had just flown by, and the vet had even ordered them a pizza to share.  She'd even let her pick the toppings. Oddly, the vet hardly ate any of it, stopping at a half-slice, but that was just more for Scootaloo. True, she didn't have a cutie mark, but her belly was full of free pizza, and that was nearly as good. On top of that, the vet had given her a jug of scale polish, which she was supposed to take to the pond and dump into the pond. Apparently, it made the fish shiny—at least, that's what the vet said, and vets knew things like that. It was perched carefully against the steering shaft of the scooter. She moved slowly through town. The jug was precariously perched, and she didn't want to spill it. Normally ponies were yelling at her to not be underhoof; she hardly ever got to do cool stuff with mares. This day was shaping up to be a pretty awesome day, after all. Finally arriving at the pond, she grabbed the bottle with her teeth and dragged it down to the water's edge. She examined the note tied to it. The vet had told her that she had to carefully follow the instructions. "Step one: pour contents of bottle into water," she read aloud. "I can do that." She tugged the cork out with her teeth and tipped the bottle over, listening to the faint glurping as the viscous liquid poured into the lake. When the bottle was finally empty, she read the second line. "Step two: mix thoroughly in lake. This is best done by splashing around in the water for a while." She frowned. That seemed like a rather . . . odd instruction. Still, it was hot, and a dip in the water would feel nice. There was a tree hanging out over the water with a rope she'd never noticed before tied to a branch—it would be the perfect thing to splash a little water around. With a gleeful cry, she soared briefly through the air, before splashing down in the center of the pond. A confectioner's dozen cannonballs left her bruised but happy, and probably mixed the scale polish in the water well enough. She ponypaddled to shore, then shook her fur dry. Next, she stretched her wings out, flapping furiously to dry them off. "Hey, Scoots, can you help us out?" She snapped her head up and clamped her wings against her side. She hadn't seen the two silvery pegasi who were fluttering just above the lake. She recognized them, of course. Scootaloo knew every pegasus who lived in Ponyville or frequented the market. It was Flitter and Cloudchaser. The former was missing her usual pink bow, and the latter was wearing a strange vest. "What do you want?" "Thunderlane stole Flitter's bow and hid it," Cloudchaser explained. "I thought Thunderlane and Rumble were in Los Pegasus." "Oh yeah. I meant Hoops. Hoops stole her bow and hid it." "Yeah. I want it back," Flitter added. "He said he hid it in Ponyville, but we've been looking, and we haven't seen it anywhere." She looked at the filly sadly. "Maybe you could help us look. Three pairs of eyes would be better than two." "What do you say?" Cloudchaser landed lightly on the sand. "I just happen to be wearing my papoose vest, so I could carry you along with us! We could fly over Ponyville and see if we can find the bow!" It took Scootaloo only a fraction of a second to decide that this was a grand idea. While they weren't as cool as Rainbow Dash, flying was flying—besides, Cloudchaser had been at the Wonderbolts Academy, so she was pretty cool. She quickly rolled her scooter over under a tree, but decided it might not be a bad idea to take her helmet, especially since it had her bits inside. In less time than she had imagined possible, Flitter had helped strap her into the vest, and the pair of pegasi took to the sky. They glided on thermals and dove between trees in what was undoubtedly the least efficient search pattern ever devised, but Scootaloo didn't care. She was flying! The vest kept her legs free, and she held them out, mimicking how Flitter was doing it. She could almost imagine she was flying on her own, especially if she looked down just enough to avoid catching Cloudchaser’s neck and chin in her peripheral vision. They skimmed low over the river; Cloudchaser dropped down low enough that Scootaloo could trail a hoof in the water, leaving a trail of spray behind them as they passed under the bridge.  As soon as they were clear, she pulled up quickly, spiraling upwards in a heart-stopping vertical climb. She finished with a quick victory loop at the top, before diving back towards the ground, hot on Flitter’s hooves. Scootaloo was having so much fun that she completely forgot she was supposed to be looking for Flitter's bow. Instead, she watched wide-eyed as the ground twisted and banked below them. This was the best day ever. "Hold your hooves up, Scoots, we're gonna land." Cloudchaser looked down to make sure the filly was following her instructions, then dove towards the market. She rocked above the stalls, twisted through an alleyway, did two barrel rolls, and finally came to a stop just shy of the town hall. She gently dropped to the ground, a winded Flitter landing beside her. "I . . . think . . . I . . . saw . . . it . . . over . . . there." Flitter pointed towards the ice-cream shop. "That was awesome," Scootaloo said as the two pegasi helped her out of the harness. "Oh, hey, it was nothing. Come on, it's hoof power now." The three ponies trotted towards Lickety Split’s, walking slowly since Flitter was still pretty winded. "Yup, that's it." Flitter looked slightly relieved as she pulled her bow off a bush outside the shop. Scootaloo’s eyes narrowed—it was hardly hidden; anypony should have been able to find it with just one pass over Ponyville—but the next words out of the mare’s mouth caused her to instantly forget how convenient the bow’s hiding place had been. "Come on, let's have some ice cream. I'll buy." As soon as they stepped into the shop, Scootaloo paused. The spa twins were sitting at the counter, sharing a tall milkshake. Lotus—or was it Aloe—looked up at her and smiled. "Ah, did you haf a gut day?" "It was awesome! I got to help the vet make medicine, and I got to put fish-polish in the pond, and I flew around with Flitter and Cloudchaser!" "Ah, zat is gut." She took another sip of the milkshake. "Venefer you is sad, you come to spa. We make something fun for you." Scootaloo frowned. Did they make all this happen, just for me? Fluttershy seemed a little . . . weirder than usual. Almost like she was making something up, and she's not good at that at all. I've never heard of scale polish before. And how would Cloudchaser and Flitter not know that Thunderlane and Rumble were out of town—they foalsit Rumble all the time! She’d felt as if she was on the verge of some important discovery all day, ever since she’d first encountered the spa twins. But her thoughts were interrupted by Flitter gently nudging her withers. Cloudchaser was proudly setting a huge banana split on the table, and it would be the perfect finish to a fantastic day. She eagerly eyed the three different flavors of ice cream, trying to decide where to start. She was so intent, she didn’t notice Aloe slide two small pieces of paper over to Cloudchaser, who carefully tucked them into her vest.