“Look, I don’t see what the big deal is.” Vinyl flapped her summoned wings in annoyance as she went back and forth in the living room, fetching her keys to stuff in the bag.
Octavia didn’t let up her disapproving gaze one bit. “You know full well what the big deal is, Vinyl. I have a schedule to keep. I have rules and regulations that must be followed.”
“And they will be followed. With three little fillies running around the house. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a train to catch.”
“You said it wasn’t for another two hours.” Octavia narrowed her eyes.
“Maybe I want to get there early, like you always tell me.” Vinyl smiled petulantly.
“Are you two fighting over schedules again?” Scootaloo groaned.
Octavia looked down. Good thing she’d deflated that wingboner when she had, because Scootaloo was home early. “No, dear, just a little miscommunication."
“Anyway, I’m off to the big city. You two don’t tear down the place while I’m gone, now.”
Octavia rolled her eyes. “Please, Vinyl. You know I never try to do your job.”
“Say hi to grandpa Zee for me!” Scootaloo called out as her aunt waved them goodbye.
“Really now, if you’re not going to call Mister Pieces by his full name, at least call him ‘grandpa Zed,’ Scoots?” Octavia remarked.
“Sorry.” Scootaloo smiled sheepishly. “Umm, you know about the sleepover?”
“I certainly do now. I thought you’d know better than to go behind my back.”
“But aunt Vinyl said I should wait to tell you, that it’d be best if she did it.”
“I’m sure she did. Now my entire schedule is just ruined.” Octavia planted a hoof on her forehead and groaned. “Unh, when are your friends arriving?”
“They can be here around five.” Scootaloo's ears drooped in embarrassment.
Octavia glanced towards the clock. “Then I’d say they are late. What’s keeping them?”
Scootaloo raised an eyebrow at the mare. “They’re coming over tomorrow?”
“Oh.” Octavia’s mood lightened at that. “Right, that’s a horse of a different colour, then. If they don’t arrive until tomorrow, that’s just perfect.”
“You’re not mad?” Scootaloo’s ears perked.
“Of course not. I was just worried what I’d be doing with the three of you.” Octavia flashed her a smile that settled in the awkward regions between 'I'm harmless' and 'Run fast, run far'.
Scootaloo winced at the sound of that sentiment. “So what are you going to do with the three of us?”
Octavia shrugged casually. “I’m sure I can work out something on the fly. I can plan for tomorrow. For now, I think you need a bath. You went walnut picking, I take it?”
“How did you know?” The filly frowned.
“You smell of apples, which is what walnut leaves smell like, you’ve got brown stains on your back, possibly from walnut peels.” Octavia plucked a little something from Scootaloo’s tail with her mouth. “And you have a walnut tree branch stuck in your tail.”
“Eheh…” Scootaloo smiled nervously at her caretaker.
“Make sure you scrub any bit that’s had a peel on it, darling. Walnut peels make golden brown stains, and that clashes with your coat.”
“I know, I know,” came the reply from inside the bathroom. The reply came with a mild ‘thud’ sound.
“Are you all right, Scootaloo?” Octavia leaned in to put her ear closer to the door.
“Just one little spot I can’t quite reach…”
Octavia rolled her eyes and walked in, before taking the washcloth and scrubbing the gold stains off the filly’s fur. She didn’t press into the skin too much, not wanting to hurt the girl.
Unfortunately, getting so close to her in the bath tub did reveal one minor detail.
“You’re losing your feathers again, you know.”
The filly sighed. She hung her head. “Gonna be another one of those nights, I guess. You-you’re going to have to put that stuff on me. And I might wake you up at night.”
Octavia sighed as she got the showerhead to rinse off the little one. “Don’t worry about it, dear. I’ll just have to make sure you’re nice and relaxed before you get to bed, won’t I?”
The little pegasus pony clambered out and let herself get dried off by the mare. “Doesn’t work. I am relaxed when I go to bed.”
“Uh huh,” Octavia noted, rubbing the girl’s back dry, “and I presume that’s why your back feels like steel wrapped in cotton, is it?”
Scootaloo winced. “That bad, huh?”
Octavia shook her head at that. Scootaloo was quite the athlete, even if it didn’t show that much. Her musculature was tight all around her midsection, and her back felt hard to the touch. She wasn’t really in any pain, but she’d gotten used to such a level of exercise her body had just turned rigid in places.
“It’s not that bad, you just need a little adjusting, that’s all. I’m sure if you learn to soften up a bit, you’ll sleep like a rose.”
“Don’t you mean ‘sleep like a baby’?”
“Have you ever heard what babies consider sleeping, darling?”
Silence fell. Octavia was always pretty clever like that. “That’s all the bits you can’t reach. You dry the rest of yourself off while I get the blow-dryer.”
Scootaloo quickly got to work as she sniffed the unfamiliar lavender scent of her fur. Most of the time she smelled sweaty or sticky, depending on what she’d been doing with her friends. She just wasn’t the type of girl who spent time trying to smell nice or even look nice. Yet she had looked pretty good in that flower filly dress at the wedding, even with her messy mane. And her belly kind of looked like it was used to corsets, even though she’d rather eat worms than wear one of those things.
She looked all right, but she wasn’t a pretty girl, and that was it. It never bothered her, at least, not a lot.
Still, Octavia didn’t spend that much time on her looks, and she always looked good. “Something wrong, Scoots?”
“Not really. I guess it’s just weird, you know? Me not being related to you and all. You’re nice, and I don’t like being a drag.” She closed her eyes as the jet of hot air hit her hair.
Octavia smiled. “Really now, how long have we been under the same roof?”
The filly raised an eyebrow in thought, letting the mare go over every little bit of wetness to get her mane in order. “A little over a year, I guess?”
Octavia nodded. “And how often have you given me a reason to be mad at you? How often have I had to yell at you?”
That got the patented Cutie Mark Crusader ‘That looks painful’ grimace. “That depends how far you wanna remember.”
The musician turned the girl around to get her tail dried off and styled the same way. “Never, Scootaloo, never.”
Scootaloo winced and blushed. “What about all the crusading? You really don’t feel mad about me poisoning my teacher or getting that gossip column?”
Octavia sat down and turned to face her. “Those are accidents, and they happen. You make mistakes, but you’re not mean. You have standards, which is more than I can say for some of your classmates. Now, if you were a little brat who whined over every little thing, I would get mad at you sometimes. If you ever broke the rules I set up clearly and repeatedly, I would be angry with you and I'd be forced to punish you. But you’re not, and you don’t, so I have no reason to.”
Scootaloo's damp wings unfurled, flapping in excitement before stopping to stand erect as they usually did. “You really mean that?”
She gave the girl an encouraging smile, flicking that tail to make sure it was nice and softened up. “Of course I do. You’ve got a lot of spirit and energy, and I’m sure one day you’ll find something perfect to channel it into. And if not, I’ll find something for you myself.”
Scootaloo chuckled softly. “Thanks. Guess I am being a little silly.”
“Then you’d best be careful, for the silliness is catchy,” Octavia joked, “what say you we help ourselves to some chocolate milk and muffins?” She switched off the blow dryer and stowed it before exiting with the filly in tow.
Scootaloo squeed at that. “You’re sure that’s okay? Won’t my mom… you know…”
“Want you to eat something healthier? You’ve been going all around town all day. Your muscles could do with some quick sugar. And besides, they’re fruit muffins.”
Those light and sweet Canterlot dinners were one thing Scootaloo and Vinyl had never minded about living with Octavia. Granted, they usually only got them when they’d had a big lunch, and oddly no one in the house ever put on weight from those sweets.
Scootaloo didn’t understand it, but she did understand that this habit was directly linked her own candy consumption. Octavia always checked the cookie jar, and Scootaloo had never dared to try and see if the mare had rigged it somehow. She never snuck any candy into her diet, simply because she got enough sweet stuff at home. It just wasn’t worth risking.
Scootaloo yawned as the action movie came to a close. The good guys had won, and they had done so with explosions, which was all the girl really cared for.
“Time for bed, dear,” Octavia started, “go brush your teeth and I’ll get the salve ready.”
Scootaloo yawned. She was tired, as one would be after an hour and a half of unicorns trying to shoot each other with flame and thunder. “Okay.”
As Octavia moved up and into the girl’s room, she sniffed the air. She’d kept the window open for a good part of the day, and with good reason. She sniffed the bed, noting that the odour of filly sweat hadn’t pervaded the fibres just yet. Taking the salve from the nightstand, Octavia greased up her hooves with a thoughtful sigh.
Scootaloo trotted in, already twitching slightly at the building itch.
“Just lie down, darling. Let me know if it gets uncomfortable.”
The girl spread herself over the bed and nodded as those thick hooves started pressing into her back, a slight chill starting to spread as the salve was spread. She wriggled in place, relaxing under the gentle hooves. “There’s another spot on my right wing, right-right there.” She suppressed a groan as those Earth pony hooves rubbed over the itching spot.
Octavia started going in circles over that hard back, looking for the spots of muscle and sinew to unwind. “That doesn’t tickle, does it?”
“No.” Scootaloo blushed as she went limp. “You’re pretty good at this.”
“I had some practice with a friend, remember?” Octavia started rubbing along the filly’s ribs. “And since you need to relax a little, I might as well keep going until you do, no?”
“Hmm.” The girl’s eyes started drifting shut. “That’s okay.”
Octavia perked her ears, listening for the girl's breath. “Feeling all right still, Scoots?”
Scootaloo’s eyes started fluttering open and closed, and she found her thoughts slowing down a notch. “Yeah, just… huh-heavy all of a sudden.”
“That’s a good sign, isn’t it?” Octavia cooed as she kept up her administrations.
“Uh… good,” she managed to sigh before her eyes fell completely shut. The excitement of the day -- and possibly the backlog of a week or two – had finally caught up to her.
“Good girl.” Octavia gave the length of her back one final gentle rub before getting her T-shirt. It was at least two sizes too big, one of Vinyl’s spare shirts from some band’s grand tour. Vinyl swore it would be worth a fortune in a few years, but for now it just kept her little niece warm at night.
She slowly slipped the girl’s front hooves in it, then pulled it over her head with her mouth. The filly stirred in her slumber, but she was too tired to really move. Then Octavia pulled the blankets nice and cosy over that lithe, limp body. The blanket slowly moved up and down, and the filly underneath smiled. Scootaloo sighed. “Good night.”
“Good night, my little pony. And don’t worry about tomorrow. I’ll have a perfect day planned out.”
And with that, she switched off the light and let the pegasus pony drift off to dreamland.