The six ponies all turned to Scootaloo slacked jawed.
Applejack spoke first, “Care to run that by us again sugarcube, because it sounded like you said you gave Fluttershy’s Element to Discord, and what the hay are you doing here anyway?”
“He said Ponyville would be safe, I just wanted wings so badly…I didn’t think it would get this far.” Scootaloo found the confession spilling out of her.
Fluttershy broke the stunned silence “You gave my element to Discord? How’d you even get to it?”
“I snuck into the cave and used a mirror to get passed the cockatrice. Fluttershy I’m sorry I-
“Scootaloo, I don’t think you should be around me now; I don’t want to say something I’ll regret” the normally demure pegasus said with such force that even her friends were taken aback. But while they were stunned by Fluttershy’s words, they couldn’t necessarily blame her. Their Elements were six of the most precious things in Equestria, an awesome and very personal responsibility entrusted to the six bearers. The idea that anypony would steal one of their elements was as unthinkable as the thought that a friend would stab them in the back with a rusty knife. And on top of that Scootaloo had betrayed Fluttershy; the other five ponies had always been a little protective of Fluttershy because of her fearful nature. After the incident with Gilda there was an unspoken rule among the five friends that no pony outside their little group was allowed to upset their timid friend lest the wrath of all six of them come crashing down like a terrible clenched fist.
Rainbow Dash flew to Fluttershy’s side and draped a wing around her as much for Scootaloo’s protection as for Fluttershy’s, “C’mon ‘Shy I’ll fly you home, you girls don’t need us for anything else right now do ya?” the look of disappointment on Rainbows face as she turned away hurt Scootaloo a thousand times worse than any words she could ever say to the orange filly.
“Breaking a pony’s trust is the fastest way to lose a friend” Pinkie almost whispered, her omnipresent smile replaced with a look of distress. “I’ll go with you.”
“N-No it’s fine, yes go home.” Twilight stammered, still processing the ramifications of Scootaloo’s actions. “I need to write to Princess Celestia,” Twilight's horn flared as she telepathically picked up the pieces of the broken element and tucked them into her saddlebag. She looked at Scootaloo, shook her head and then turned around slowly beginning the walk back to Ponyville.
“Ah-uh-ah reckon I should go check on Apple Bloom and Granny Smith. You -you might want to think long and hard about what ya done,” Applejack said before hurrying to catch up with Twilight.
Scootaloo turned around and saw Rarity still standing in the field with a surprisingly pensive look on her face “Well aren’t you going to leave me here alone too?” she sniffled.
Rarity walked over to the orange filly and sat down next to her. “You’ve caused a lot of trouble for a lot of ponies you don’t even know.”
Scootaloo whimpered, quietly choking back tears.
“Things like this don’t go away just because you say you’re sorry.” Rarity continued. “However, perhaps I can do you this small favor; I shall be the one pony in all of Equestria who isn’t upset with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am choosing not to be mad at you. When all of Equestria is beating down your door, and believe me it will, you can come to the Carousel Boutique and I’ll pretend like everything is normal. We can play games or do arts and crafts; whatever you want. Consider my house your own personal oasis”.
Scootaloo turned and looked up at the older unicorn, “Why are you being so nice to me? It’s not like I deserve it.”
“When you get older you’ll learn that life seldom gives us what we deserve. Part of the reason I am being so nice to you is that I love my little sister dearly and Celestia knows I don’t always pay enough attention to her; but she has you and Apple Bloom to compensate for my myopia and that is a debt I can never repay. But another part of it is I know what it’s like to want something so badly that you convince yourself that one more step won’t hurt; then before you know it you’re in over your head, desperate for one last miracle before your world comes crashing down around you.”
“You once tried to help Discord?”
“No dear, but maybe something just as bad in its own way.”
“What’d you do?” Scootaloo had a hard time imagining anything that the living embodiment of generosity could have done that could be classified as treacherous. Overly dramatic sure, maybe even a bit self absorbed, but certainly not treacherous.
“If I tell you, you have to promise that this stays between us.”
“I promise,” the orange filly replied.
“Pinkie promise.”
“Cross my heart and hope to fly stick a cupcake in my eye,” Scootaloo repeated the familiar gestures, fully aware of the unspeakable horrors that befell those who chose to break the sacred oath.
“Do you know why I don’t use fire rubies in my designs?”
“Because they’re really rare and expensive?” Scootaloo guessed.
Rarity shook her head, “One of the many secrets of the fashion world is that fire rubies aren’t all that rare, the dragons just hoard them all. It is very hard to find them in Equestria but they’re easy to come by if you can convince a dragon to part with them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When I was just starting out as a designer one of my first lines was called the sunset collection. Truthfully it was a little amateurish but I didn’t know any better. Each piece in the collection was meant to invoke a sunset, and to give it that extra je ne sais quoi, I used gems to make the dresses shimmer. Oh I had blue sapphires and purple amethyst, orange garnets with yellow citrines; it really was quite spectacular in a gaudy sort of way. Anyways the whole collection was incomplete without those gorgeous red fire rubies. I simply had to have them, I thought my very future as a designer depended on it. So I traveled to Dragontopia and met with a dragon that was more than willing to sell me fire rubies at below market value, the catch was I had to help him find other gems in the Equestrian Mountains.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“It wasn’t …not at first. We’d go into the mountains, I’d use my gem spell to find the gems and he’d give me a few fire rubies, but soon I noticed that his lust for gems was insatiable. Then one day I found a large emerald deposit right under a buffalo village. I told him that we’d have to find another source of emeralds but of course he was a dragon, and when dragons want something they tend not to let little things like a village of buffalo stand in their way. He…he burned it to the ground… every last house. When I saw the devastation I was appalled. I still remember the look on his face as he just smiled and shrugged; in dragon culture it’s considered morally wrong to be too weak to defend your hoard. I couldn’t help him anymore after that. I kept seeing the look on those poor buffalos faces as they were forced to flee their homes. He gave me my last fire rubies and we concluded our relationship. I knew that eventually we’d come across gems that belonged to somepony else; I kept telling myself that I would quit before it got that far. What I didn’t realize was that once you start something you know is wrong it’s a lot harder to turn back then it is to never get involved in the first place. I knew he was not a nice dragon, but I had to have those fire rubies, so I worked with him anyway. I thought if I could just have enough rubies to complete my collection I’d finally be worth something as a fashion designer.
“So what’d you do next?”
“I sold the buffalo the rights to the sunset collection in exchange for easing my conscience. They settled elsewhere and I vowed to never again sacrifice my principals in the name of fashion, but it took me a long time before I was ready to design another collection.”
“But you didn’t really do anything wrong.”
“Yes I did Scootaloo. I may not have personally burned that village down but I led him right to it. I knew what would happen if I told him about the emeralds but I convinced myself that there was no other way.And if it hadn’t been that buffalo village it would have been something else”
“Does the guilt ever go away?”
“It gets better with time, but it doesn’t ever completely leave and you shouldn’t want it to. The only thing you can do is own it and use that feeling to make you a better pony.”
“Is that why you’re so generous?”
“Well I like to think that I’d be generous regardless of the mistakes of my past; but whenever I need a reminder of what happens when I become selfish it doesn’t hurt to think about that awful day,” Rarity smiled wistfully.
Scootaloo stared intently at the ground “I messed up bad Rarity.”
“You most certainly did. You very nearly doomed all of Equestria, you hurt a very dear friend of mine and you’ve quite possibly irreparably damaged one of the most powerful weapons for good that we have, I dare say that messes don’t come any bigger.” there was a slight edge to Rarity’s voice as she listed Scootaloo’s transgressions.
“I didn’t have a choice,” the orange filly said somewhat defiantly.
“Darling listen to me very carefully. You always have a choice. Did you think we really wouldn’t understand what it’s like dealing with Discord?”
“I don’t know,” Scootaloo mumbled.
“Believe me when I say that we know what it’s like when Discord offers you two unappealing options.”
“So what should I do now?”
“You should try to make amends, but it will take time.”
“How do I even begin to start?”
“The longest journey begins with a single step, nothing is going to get better if you just sit there.” Scootaloo nodded meekly. “C’mon dear I’ll walk you back into town.”
The next day was unpleasant; to put it mildly, as far as Scootaloo was concerned. Twilight had written to princess Celestia and was waiting on her royal decree. In the interim she met with Scootaloo to hear her version of events. Scootaloo explained how Discord first approached her and everything that happened after that. Much to Scootaloo’s chagrin Twilight didn’t yell at her or threaten to banish her from Equestria, she merely sat there and nodded while she took notes. If she would get mad I could deal with that but she’s barely said two words to me. Because Ponyville didn’t have a proper jail (the worse crime that ever happened was the occasional littering by an absent minded pony), Twilight agreed to let her stay at home so long as she didn’t leave town. She was also allowed to keep her wings as the only way to remove them would be through surgery, and everypony agreed that such a measure would be exceptionally barbaric. The pieces of Fluttershy’s Element had been sent with Spike to the castle forge in Canterlot in the hopes that Luna and Celestia might be able to reassemble them.
And so after spending three days grounded at home Scootaloo was allowed to go on about her life while Twilight waited for the news from Canterlot; but much like the Gabby Gums fiasco she quickly found that the rest of Ponyville was unwilling to pretend that her mistakes were water under the bridge. It wasn’t that they were outright hostile toward her, but she couldn’t help but notice that conversations would quickly end as she approached. Ponies who normally waved at her as she zipped through town on her scooter would look the other way as she was coming. Is this going to be my life now? Unsure of what else to do Scootaloo decided to head over to the CMC clubhouse, when she got there she found her fellow Cutie Mark Crusaders already inside.
“Umm is it ok if I come in?” Scootaloo winced and braced herself for the inevitable rejection.
Instead she looked up to see her two friends galloping toward her, before she could open her mouth Apple Bloom had hug tackled her and Sweetie Belle had piled on.
“Scoots! We thought we were never gonna see you again,” Sweetie Bell said as she helped her friends up from the ground.
“Yeah I heard that they took you to Canterlot and locked you in the dungeon and the only thing you get to eat is raw hay and water three times a day.”
“We were totally going to bust you out,” Sweetie Belle said confidently.
“Umm no, at least I hope they don’t do that. You mean y’all aren’t mad at me?”
“Well maybe you shouldn’t have stolen Fluttershy’s Element-”
“-and we are kinda upset you didn’t tell us what you were doing-”
“-But you’re our friend Scoots, and friends stick together even when one of them messes up.”
“Cutie Mark Crusaders, one for all and all for one.”
“I think somepony else already says that.”
“Well why should they get all the good mottos?”
Scootaloo laughed as her friends fell into their usual friendly bickering. She spent the rest of the afternoon telling them all about Discord and the cockatrice cave and how Fluttershy had apparently defeated Discord just by talking to him, which they all agreed was even more impressive then that time they saw her use her famed stare.
Soon it was getting dark and Scootaloo had to head home. While her parents hadn’t grounded her, (it seemed that they were also waiting on word from Canterlot to decide the full extent of Scootaloo’s punishment), they did insist that she be back before dinner.
She woke up the next day in a distinctly better mood than she had on the previous days. Feeling emboldened by her meeting with the CMC, Scootaloo decided to try talking to the Element bearers to see if they would forgive her as easily as her friends had. Since she was kind of hungry she thought that she’d swing by Sugar Cube Corner first.
“Hello Scootaloo.” Pinkie Pie said without a drop of her usual merriment as Scootaloo walked through the door.
“Umm what kind of cupcakes do you have today?” the orange filly said hoping that she could get Pinkie talking about her favorite things.
“They’re in the display case, you can see for yourself.”
“Oh, umm I guess I’ll have a double chocolate.”
“Very well, that’ll be three bits.”
“Ok here ya go.”
Scootaloo took her cupcake as Pinkie Pie just nodded.
Well that didn’t go very well., If Pinkie is that mad at me do I even want to try to swing by Fluttershy’s cottage? While she was debating whether or not to go visit Fluttershy she saw Rainbow Dash in her usual practice field working on her routine. Scootaloo stopped dead in her tracks. What if Rainbow doesn’t want to be my friend anymore? I can get out of here before she sees me, but what if she thinks I don’t want to be her friend? Deciding that she’d rather know than not know Scootaloo cautiously approached the field and stood off to the edge while she waited for Rainbow to notice her. After a few minutes Rainbow Dash saw the tiny filly watching her practice and flew over.
“Hey Rainbow Dash, umm I know you’re probably still angry at me but I wanted to say I’m sorry-”
“Do you even get why I’m angry with you kid?”.
“Because I stole Fluttershy’s Element and gave it to Discord?”
I don’t care about the Element, I mean I do but that’s not what this is about. I care that you didn’t trust me. I told ya that you should walk away but you didn’t listen. Then you knew we we’re going up against Discord and you let us go out there without a full deck. ‘Shy coulda been hurt, I coulda been hurt, hay all of Equestria could have been seriously messed up if ‘Shy didn’t save our flanks! Look I get that you wanted wings, but I love flying more than anypony and I’d cut my wings off myself before I risked my friends lives. I just thought maybe you were the same way.
“Rainbow Dash-”
“I don’t want to talk to you right now. I need some time to get over this.”
Scootaloo burst into the Carousel Boutique trying to hold back tears. Rarity had assumed that at some point Scootaloo would stop by when she was feeling upset and thus had purposefully kept her schedule light and appointment free for the next few days. She had a supply of games and crafts projects ready to go and had explained to Sweetie Belle her idea that the Carousel Boutique was to be a haven of sorts for Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle had of course readily agreed to her plan, however when Rarity saw Scootaloo’s face she had an inkling that perhaps a game of Chutes and Ladders may not be enough to calm the troubled filly.
“Sweetie Belle could you be a dear and put some tea on? I’m just going to talk to Scootaloo for a minute.”
“Ok sis,” came the reply from the kitchen.
Rarity’s horn flared up and flipped the sign on the door so that the outside facing side read sorry we’re closed. She levitated a box of tissues from one of her workstations and sat down next to the orange filly.
After internally debating how best to approach Scootaloo Rarity settled on a gentle “Feel like talking about it dear?”
“I just ran into Rainbow Dash and I don’t think she’s ever going to forgive me, and Pinkie is still mad at me and I haven’t even talked to Fluttershy yet.” Faced with the possibility that her idol would be perpetually mad at her Scootaloo broke out in tears.
Rarity handed the filly a tissue and gently rubbed between her wings for a minute before speaking.
“Rainbow Dash doesn’t trust easily, it’s one of the side effects of her being so loyal. She’s very careful about who she let’s in because she takes her friendships so seriously. I think that perhaps she’s having a hard time moving past this because she can’t fully understand why you did it.”
“But she forgave me for the whole Gabby Gums thing.”
“Do you really think this is like that?”
“I guess not,” the orange filly was forced to concede. “But I just want everything to be like it was before. Y’know, when Rainbow Dash liked me.”
“She still likes you dear, she’s just hurt. Give her time okay?”
“Okay” Scootaloo said even though she didn’t entirely believe it. Before Rarity could suggest a game or crafts project a small burst of green flame appeared and a rolled up scroll with embossed with the familiar wax seal of the royal court materialized out of nowhere.
“What is that?” Scootaloo asked.
“It appears to be a royal letter delivered via Spike mail dear.”
“Spike mail?”
“Spike can send letters directly to other ponies; it’s how Twilight writes to Princess Celestia.”
Scootaloo trembled slightly as she gripped the rolled parchment in her hooves. Taking a deep breath she unrolled it, expecting to learn her fate. Instead it simply read:
Scootaloo, you are hereby summoned to answer for your crimes. Your hearing will be held tomorrow morning at 9am at the Ponyville town hall. Princess Twilight Sparkle.