//------------------------------//
// Reflections 
// Story: Just Winging It 
// by arcum42 
//------------------------------//

In the clubhouse, the three crusaders looked at each other uneasily. In theory there were all sorts of things they could do. Dinner may be coming up, but they still had enough time that they could do something. But somehow their hearts weren't in it.

After a moment silence, all three of them spoke up.

"Do you think we should-" 

"I reckon it's time-" 

"Maybe we should call it a night?"

They glanced back and forth at each other, somewhat relieved it was out in the open. The fact was, what had just happened to them was disturbing and kind of scary. Scootaloo just wanted to put it out of her mind and go home, and looking at the others, she was pretty sure they felt the same way.

"We'll get together again soon, though, right?" Sweetie Belle asked. 

That was pretty much par for the course, Scootaloo reflected. All three of them were good friends, but Sweetie Belle always seemed to need their support a little more than her or Apple Bloom. 

This was one of the reasons she put up with Sweetie Belle hugging her a bit more then she would anypony else, in fact. It was as much for Sweetie Belles' sake as hers.

"Of course we will," Scootaloo reassured her. "At the very least, there's magic practice next week."

Sweetie Belle brightened at the reminder.

"That trainin' Twilight's doing will leave you free weekends, too, won't it?" Apple Bloom asked.
"We could do somethin' then."

"I hope it does," Scootaloo groused. "I need to have some time off."

Scootaloo gathered up her books. Some part of her was disturbed at how much time she was going to be spending with them. She'd never been that into reading or academics, and would much rather be practicing on her scooter. But flying was on the line here.

Apple Bloom pulled a piece of canvas that was left over from one of their previous excursions out of a corner, and draped it over the chalk marks left over from their summoning. Scootaloo supposed that they ought to clean it up, but none of them really felt like going near it at this point.

Leaving the clubhouse, the three walked together in silence for a while, none of them particularly wanting to talk about the summoning, but not really able to think about much else. Eventually, they went their separate ways.

Once Scootaloo got home, she immediately headed straight for her room. She took her saddlebags off, and set the book on sigils down in the middle of her desk.

By rights, she really ought to start reading up on creating her own sigils now. She still needed to create the first one to go with her magic exercises, according to that other book. After everything that happened earlier, she really didn't feel like having anything to do with sigils, though.

Taking a piece of paper out, she started doodling idly. As always seemed to be the case, the doodles soon formed into a sketch of Rainbow Dash. She frowned at it. That was another thing bothering her.

Twilight seemed intent on bringing Rainbow into help her train. That was exciting, but it made her nervous, and she honestly wasn't sure how she felt about that.

Having Rainbow Dash teach her how to fly had been one of her oldest dreams, ever since she first saw her doing some of her awesome tricks, but this was different. She'd always pictured Rainbow coming to her and offering to help her learn to fly. Or sometimes it had been Scootaloo going to her, asking, and Rainbow Dash being cool with it.

Not like this, though. This would be Rainbow helping her out because her friend Twilight asked her to. Not because she liked Scootaloo, but as a favor. Not even because of them being 'sisters'.

Sisters. She was actually really nervous about that, too. She wasn't sure, but it felt like Rainbow didn't really want to be sisters. She hadn't said anything since her promise, and Scootaloo was starting to think maybe she was regretting it.

She'd promised Luna the other night she'd talk to her about it, though. She didn't really want to, any more than she wanted to talk to Octy about-

Her pencil clattered to the desk. That's right. Octy already knew. When she'd left, she'd mentioned what had happened in the basement. Scootaloo was suddenly certain that she was going to want to talk about it, probably soon.

And she didn't want to. She really didn't want to talk about it with Octy, for a bunch of reasons. She might be willing to let it go, but it was hardly a coincidence that it had triggered her nightmares last night.

Of course, the fact that it had all happened here didn't really help. The decorations may be different now, but this was still the same room as all those years ago. She walked to the middle of the room. It didn't take much imagination at all to place her back all those years ago.

Suddenly, it seemed colder. The hallway loomed at her from her bedroom doorway. The back of her mind screamed at her in terror. It was stupid, but she felt paralysed. She took one slow step toward the door, then another.

There was nothing down there. She knew it. There wasn't screaming coming from the hallway, and her parents weren't down there dying. They were dead, and had been for years. So why was her heart racing?

She stepped out into the hall. See, nothing there, sil- She heard a loud chopping sound, breaking her chain of thought.

What was that?

It came again. A lump formed in her throat. She kept walking.

"Scoots?" Octavia's voice called out to her from downstairs.

Ok, Octy's here. It must be nothing. She started to relax. This wasn't like her, anyways. She was supposed to be brave. Brave and bold and daring facing-

"Scoots?" Octavia called out again. "Why don't you get yourself washed up and come on down. Dinner's about ready."

Well, she could bravely face dinner, she supposed. Then she smacked herself in the forehead with one hoof. Dinner. The sound had been Octy chopping up vegetables for dinner. Stupid, Scootaloo, stupid.

"I'll be down in a minute!" 

Heading over to the bathroom at a considerably faster pace, she splashed some water on her face to try to get herself back in a more normal state of mind. Then, a quick scrubdown of her hooves and a pass of a comb through her mane, and she was ready.

Well, ready in her eyes. She knew some mares could take hours getting ready in the bathroom. She'd never seen the point. Why take great pains with your appearance? It wasn't like she wasn't going to just get all messed up again right afterwards.

Trotting downstairs, Octavia intercepted her, and sent her over to the kitchen for plates. Tonight it was just the two of them, which was a shame. She was still pretty sure she'd get ambushed about last night, and having Vinyl there to run interference would have been really nice.

A couple plates, glasses, and sets of silverware and the table was ready. She sat down to dinner and started eating, not paying very much attention to the meal in front of her. She felt totally drained from the events of the day, and really didn't want to talk about last night.

Of course, Octy might not even notice that she was avoiding the subject.

"Is something on your mind tonight, Scoots?" Octavia said, delicately biting into a green bean.

Or maybe she was bloody psychic.

"No," she said, toying with a carrot on her plate.

"You've gone all monosyllabic," Octavia said. "What's wrong?"

Why were parents always so irritatingly perceptive?

"Nothing's wrong," she insisted. "I'm fine."

Scootaloo half-heartedly took a bite out of a radish, really wishing this meal was over.

"You know you can always talk to me, right?" Octavia said..

"Right," Scootaloo echoed.

"I'd rather not have to find out about what's going on in your life from elsewhere," Octy said, setting her fork down. "Like what happened in Twilight's basement last night."

"I don't want to talk about that." So much for keeping off the subject.

"I gathered," she replied. "It really hurts when I have to find out about important things in your life myself."

"How did you?" Scootaloo asked, curiosity overriding her urge not to talk about it.

"I asked Spike, of course," Octavia said matter-of-factly.

And Spike told her everything she wanted to know. See if I trust him again.

"Of course, he seemed to be under the impression you would have already told me about it."

Well, ok, maybe that was understandable, then.

"So why didn't you tell me, Scoots?" Octavia's voice had a slightly hurt tone to it.

Scootaloo sighed.

"Octy, think back to last night. What exactly happened when I walked in?"

"Well, I'd been waiting for you for hours, worried sick," she recollected. "Then you came in, and I asked you what had happened."

Sure, Octy. In what world was that how things went?

"As I remember, you immediately jumped on me about where I'd been, started lecturing me, then started coming to all sorts of conclusions about what happened without any help from me," Scootaloo said, exasperated.

"I couldn't have been that bad," Octavia said, sipping a glass of  wine. "and regardless, if something happens to you, I need to know."

"Maybe." Scootaloo took a big bite of salad, and chewed on it for a minute before continuing. "I was worried, okay?"

"That's a little better," Octavia said. "What had you so worried?"

"Look, Twilight's the only one that was willing to take me seriously and help me with my flying at the time. I wasn't about to mess that up. She's smart, got lots of ideas about it, and is putting bunches of schedules and lists together for me. I didn't want to be told she couldn't help."

"Scoots, I'd discuss anything like that with you before making that big of a decision," Octy reassured her. "It seemed to me that Spike was going to prevent anything like that from happening again, anyway. He mentioned it to me several times."

Thank you, Spike.

"Alright," Scootaloo said slowly. "I suppose should have discussed it with you."

"Was there any other reason you didn't feel comfortable talking about it?"

Of course there was, Octy.

"Maybe."

"Maybe," she repeated.

Scootaloo squirmed around. "It was embarrassing."

"You don't have to hide things from me because of them being embarrassing, Scoots. Parents specialize in embarrassing things. I've bathed you, and even changed out your sheets when-" She stopped and looked down at the swirls in her half-full glass of wine. "Oh."

Scootaloo looked down at her salad. "Yeah."

"I suppose… that makes sense if you lost control of all your muscles," she said reflectively. "Spike didn't go into that."

"It's embarrassing," Scootaloo repeated. "It's not like I'm a little kid any more."

"You weren't when I changed your sheets, either."

Thanks ever so much for reminding me.

"Octy!"

"It's not your fault. It was those horrible nightmares fault," Octavia told her. "You couldn't have helped this either."

"It doesn't feel like it, though," Scootaloo said.

"Anypony would have had that happen if they were in your place last night, Scoots. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

Actually, Spike had said something similar, hadn't he?

"I suppose."

"So, did you do anything interesting with your friends this afternoon?"

She might as well break it to Octy when she's trying to be all accepting and understanding.

"Well…"





Octavia let out a low moan, her head resting on the dining room table. All in all, Scootaloo thought she was taking it rather well.

"Scootaloo," she said faintly, "do you ever think before doing these things?"

Well, maybe that reaction could have been better, Scootaloo admitted to herself, but it could have been much worse.

"Things might have gotten a little out of hoof."

"A little?" Octavia sighed. "I never thought I'd have Discord to thank for anything. Everything else in the book is safe?"

"Yeah." Scootaloo sighed.

"And the creature is gone now, right?" Octavia said, in a tone of voice that made it clear that an answer of no was not a possibility.

"Yes, Octavia."

"You do realise that trying a spell without reading about it was incredibly foolish, don't you?"She lectured.

"A hungry tentacled thing coming after me made me think that, yeah."

Octavia picked her head off the table. "Scootaloo, whatever will I do with you?"

Karaoke? Scootaloo figured she probably shouldn't reply to that one. After a minute, Octavia continued.

"Well, you know, you did just tell me one other important thing," Octavia said.

"What's that?" Scootaloo asked, curious.

"You have homework tonight."

Scootaloo suddenly sat upright at that.

"I've... got homework?" she repeated slowly. "School's out for summer!"

"School isn't the only place you can get homework, Scoots," she said patiently. "You were supposed to create sigils for each of the types of training you were doing, weren't you?"

Scootaloo groaned, having totally forgotten mentioning that. "Aww."

"I expect you to work on at least one of them tonight. Why don't I get you a glass of chocolate milk, and then you can get started?"

At least there was chocolate involved.

Scootaloo washed down the rest of her dinner with a nice tall glass of chocolate milk. After helping Octavia clear the table, she trudged on up to her room.

Homework. Bleah.





Pretty soon, she was back at her desk, book in front of her. Having just read through the section of the book on custom sigils for what must have been the third time, her head was still spinning. Summoning weird creatures from somewhere beyond Equestria was seeming more and more appealing in comparison.

She had taken a bunch of notes as she was going, though. Where was she supposed to begin on this? She flipped through them, trying to ignore the various doodles she'd made whenever the book got boring. There were a lot of them.

Still, it looked like her first step was writing something called a statement of intent. She grabbed a blank sheet of paper, wrote Statement of Intent on the top, and underlined it a few time for good measure.

So she was supposed to write down what she wanted to happen. The examples were all along the line of "By my will, I shall something", or "This is my will to something.". 

She scribbled down "This is my will to learn how to fly.". Easy. She could do the rest later, right?

She glanced back through her notes and frowned. That wasn't nearly specific enough. Also, Twilight was already working on lesson plans and things, so technically that was already true.

She crossed that off, and wrote "This is my will, to be able to fly as well as Rainbow Dash.". 

That was better, wasn't it?

She looked through her notes again. "Think about the different ways your statement could be interpreted."

No, that was no good. What if Rainbow Dash broke her wings or something? Then she would technically be able to fly as well as Rainbow Dash. She crossed the statement out, shivering.

Being able to fly as well as Rainbow Dash was a little ambitious, anyways. Being able to fly as well as Fluttershy, even, would be an improvement from what she could do now.

She sighed. Alright, next attempt. "By my will, I shall be able to fly from one side of Ponyville to the other."

There we are. Much less ambitious. Most pegasuses could do that, anyways. Or was that pegasi?

She was about ready to move on when it occurred to her. Wasn't she supposed to be doing sigils for each exercise, not flying as a whole?

Ponyfeathers. She scratched that off, too.

She had just done her magic exercises, so she might as well start there. She needed something specific. "My will is to have enough magic in me to be able to fly."

Scootaloo thought for a minute. No. She started writing again. "My will is to have enough magic in me to fly across Ponyville, and be able to use it."

Her head was swimming a bit from all this. That was probably good enough, anyways. Lets move on.

The next step struck her as a bit silly, but she pulled out another sheet of paper for it anyways. She wrote down her statement without any spaces, and then started crossing out any duplicates, her tongue unconsciously creeping out of the side of her mouth while she did so.

She looked down at what she had. "MYWILSTOHAPVENUGCFRDB"

Well, alright, though she wondered if maybe she should have left the whole "My will is to" bit off the front. Still, the next part should be fun.

She took all the letters, and tried to make a design out of them. After a few tries, she realised that there was absolutely no way she could turn the letters into a picture of Rainbow Dash. Not that she was really that enthusiastic about her at the moment anyways.

Time passed, and her trash can accumulated crumpled balls of paper, but eventually she had something that looked cool and vaguely magicky, to her, at least.

So, time for the next step. She took out yet another blank sheet of paper. Now, according to what this said, she was supposed to picture a ball of energy inside her, and pull it up through her into the pencil or pen she was writing with.

She wouldn't have questioned that yesterday, but after Twilight's magic lessons, that didn't seem quite right. I mean, she couldn't channel magic through her mouth or hooves, could she?

Twilight had said something about her horn acting as an antenna. Of course she was a pegasus now, and just had wings… Wait a minute.

Rummaging under her bed turned up one or two of her old molted feathers. A little sharpening, and one was easily usable as a quill. She dipped it in ink and awkwardly tried to draw the symbol a few times, using one of her wings.

Once she had it down, she cleared her mind, channelled magic through her wings, and sketched the symbol out on a fresh piece of paper, her magic fully behind it.

After the sketch was finished, she looked at it proudly for a few minutes, focussing on her intent, and the sentence she had written earlier.

Next, she was supposed to get rid of it, which seemed like a shame after so much work. She shoved it behind one of her posters, and yawned.

It's been a long day, she thought, and got into bed, turning out the lights. Within a few minutes, any questions in her mind about the way she'd made the sigil were completely gone, and she was fast asleep.

Behind her, an orange glow came from behind one of her posters, and gradually faded away to nothing.