//------------------------------// // 67 // Story: Twilights Mane Passion // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// It was just a few days before her friend’s birthday. Fluttershy was spending the day by the lake playing with the cute little ducks waiting for Smarty Pants to make an appearance. The pixie has been on the case of finding out everything she could about the filly known as Scootaloo. Twilight’s birthday was coming up and Fluttershy was busy with trying to think of a good gift to get. As she thought of a myriad of things that her friend would appreciate, she was busy tossing the last bits of bread she had to the ducks. The waiting was probably the worst part of all this, the best part was that the ducks were exceedingly fun and being a perfectly entertaining distraction for Fluttershy. As she just finished throwing the last piece of bread and watched the ducklings fight over it in an adorable manner, a huge explosion went off in the sky. Instead of flying away or running for cover, every duck in the area immediately went for the confused Fluttershy who suddenly found herself under a pile of feathers. Fluttershy was soon looking up at the sky as the explosion quickly dissipated; it left her wondering what could have possibly caused it. It took her a moment to calm down all the ducks piled on top of her, she eventually managed to stop them from quacking in fear and get them all off of her in a gentle manner. Afterwards they started to wander around calmly once more if slightly ruffled by the sudden sound and were a bit more wary of their surroundings. Watching the sky for any sign for what could have caused such a massive explosion, Fluttershy saw a small speck slowly veering for the lake and was falling at a rather quick pace. After a minute of keeping an eye on it she could make out that the speck was somewhat green and it suddenly started falling much slower as if it just went into a glide. While her attention was on that flying object of an unidentified nature, Smarty Pants flew up to her also looking at the sky. “Fluttershy did you see that huge explosion in the sky? I’m curious to know…” Smart was suddenly shushed by Fluttershy and the tiny pixie stopped and tried to see what Fluttershy was looking at. A pegasus by nature had good eyesight, if they didn’t have good eyesight they would usually wear specialized goggles. Glasses weren’t very good things to be wearing at high altitudes when you fly around, especially considering the cost of replacement when goggles were cheaper in the long run. Fluttershy narrowed her eyes and they widened at what the falling object was and why it is currently gliding a large circle to try and stay above the lake. She watched as Tress had suddenly angled herself downward and slammed home into the lake sending a huge blast of water flying upwards. Immediately Fluttershy flew out over the lake and soon hovered above the super powered pony that bobbed up to the surface hacking and spluttering water. Quickly Fluttershy grabbed Tress's hoof and started to slowly drag her back towards the shore of the lake, she felt Tress relax at her touch while the mare’s hair slowly turned from green to blue. After taking a moment to wipe her mane out of her face with her free hoof, Tress smiled brightly up at the sight of Fluttershy bravely helping her out of the lake. As soon as Fluttershy had Tress pulled onto the shore, they were surrounded by rather curious ducks that had to be shooed away by the reluctant shy mare. “Are you okay Tress? What happened, what was that explosion and how were you gliding like that?” Fluttershy soon found that there wasn’t exactly a problem to worry about as Tress soon started laughing. “After falling presumably from the starting point of where that explosion was, I’d assume she’s lost it because of some extenuating circumstance that she probably finds highly humorous.” Smart only got a raised hoof that shook in her direction while Tress was trying to find her voice in her laughter. It took a moment for the mare to collect herself. “Yeah, you could say something like that. I’m fine by the way, thanks for asking. You really don’t want to know, you might not even believe me even if I told you and I used my powers to shape then stiffen my hair to allow me to control my fall well enough to hit the nearest body of water. Remind me to go hair gliding on purpose later on will you Smart? I don’t know when I might need to do that again and it could be a useful skill to have, WHOO what an adrenaline rush!” Tress rolled onto her back throwing two hooves into the air while laughing heartily once more, all the while lying on top of her soggy wet mane. “Don’t you worry about me, go on with what you two were doing before I got here.” “Well if you’re sure you’re okay, let me check your muscles first.” Fluttershy took a moment to diagnose Tress as just slightly tense and gave her a light muscle relaxing massage for whatever it was she just went through. She found herself looking to Smart as a large satisfying pop went off and Tress let out a moan of pleasure causing Fluttershy to blush. “Smart, what did you find out about Scootaloo? If it’s okay for you to tell me that is. I’m curious to know what you found out about that poor little filly.” “A lot of surprising things really, Scootaloo has this entire conspiracy going on around her. One that involves trombones, chickens, tree sap, Doughnut Joe’s, the third Daring Do novel specifically and the ambiguous fact that I don’t know whether or not Scootaloo’s parents are actually alive.” The little pixie pony paused while tapping a hoof to her tiny chin as she hovered in front of the two ponies. “To be quite frank it’s all very weird, every last bit of it.” “Sounds interesting, tell us more about it.” Around this time Tress had calm down thanks to Fluttershy's rather soft touch and had caught her breath, she was going to be drip drying for the next thirty minutes or so. “Just the thing you found out about her parents please. If you don’t mind me saying so, we really don’t need to know all that unimportant stuff.” It was the most important thing to Fluttershy, all that other stuff sounded weird and rather like a chain of rather incongruent irrelevant details. The shy mare just wanted to know of Scootaloo’s parents. “It feels kind of weird that I’ve been following her for the most of an entire week now, it feels like it’s been a month. Oh, just a reminder it’s almost our birthday by the way, I can give you some good ideas of what to get Twilight. I’ve been giving all our friends some really good ideas in my spare time, just as long as it’s not cookbooks.” Smart got an angry glare from both Tress and even Fluttershy, getting an angry glare from the shy mare was hard to do and a first for the toy. “Hold your, yeah… I’m getting to it. I have found out that if she does have parents they are likely in a completely different country entirely and are never going to be around to take care of Scootaloo. If she doesn’t have them then she’s by far the most resourceful filly I’ve ever heard of. As we all know I’m Ponyville’s librarian, as such there are some perks to the job and one such perk is the ability to get into some documents. Basically the house that Scootaloo lives in is in her name and completely paid for, then that’s when things start to go Twilight Zone.” “Okay Smart, now you’ve got my attention.” Rolling onto her belly Tress looked at Smart with a serious expression. The words ‘Twilight Zone’ was code for something that has become extremely convoluted like her or any pony’s life from being around Twilight Sparkle. “I know you said you only wanted to hear the important stuff. The conspiracy around Scootaloo is the important stuff. Let me start, try to follow and keep up with me now. The house in Scootaloo’s name is being paid for by a griffon trombone making company. Said company has done a lot of business with the chicken feed corporation in Manehatten which may not seem like much at first glance. That chicken feed corporation in turn has ties with a maple syrup company which is owned primarily by the Average Joes clan of ponies who all specialize in diners with an all day breakfast theme. Daring Do is a real pony apparently and frequents one particular clan member’s doughnut shop in Canterlot; this is mentioned in passing in the third Daring Do book under an assumed identity.” Smart stopped when she noticed by Fluttershy and Tress were staring at her oddly. “Lost yet?” “Daring Do is a real pony, seriously? What next, the author of her books being the mare herself under the assumed name of AK Yearling?” Despite her scoffing, Tress saw that Smart went deathly quiet. “You’re not kidding are you? Okay that is weird, but what does all this have to do with Scootaloo? It seems like nothing much so far, but a bunch of stuff that seems like normal business.” “AK Yearling is in fact Daring Do, who knows Twilight Velvet Quality Sparkle who is the editor for the more fictional parts of the story that in fact happen. They meet at that doughnut shop to discuss details of the books and I think Donut Joe is a celestial agent that meets frequently with Daring.” The little pixie cross her hooves and tilted her head at the sudden increase in interest. “Continuing on from there, I’ve found the books from the popular Daring Do series somehow ends up paying for some of Scootaloo’s stuff as well as the home in question. While the filly is out, random groceries are delivered to the house by some of the sneakiest celestial guards I’ve ever seen. This makes things even stranger as Celestia has a hoof in it as well. She’s the one that’s allocating the money from the popular book series towards this through all these places of business and has a large share in every single one of them under the name Tia Celes. No adult ponies are ever around Scootaloo in her day to day life and I’m not even sure that her mother and father are alive with the exception that there is plenty of room for doubt considering this conspiracy. In all Scootaloo appeared and has been living in Ponyville for the last three years without the presence of a guardian being seen at all accompanying her at any given time, her birth records are blacked out and there’s even deeper and weirder conspiratorial stuff floating around about her that I couldn’t get into. I know it’s there at least.” “I’m still trying to wrap my head around Daring Do as being real, so that means the ahuizotl we saw in Canterlot was in fact that specific ahuizotl from the book. So the things that happen in the books do happen for real, only not entirely in the way they are written as Velvet alters them to be more kid friendly.” Any pony would have a problem following all this and Tress was certainly among them. Adding the princess into the mix just pushed it into further complexities. “Oh my goodness, tell me that there is a pony is capable of adopting the poor thing?” Fluttershy really hoped that some pony could at least move in with Scootaloo. She wasn’t homeless or hungry, but she was a lonely little pegasus that needed love more than she needed the comfort of a stable place to live. “Sorry, but she’s apparently a homeowner, as such she can’t be taken away by an orphanage. So that’s a no on the adoption. Cheerilee does need to be notified of the truancy issue however, so that’s one thing we can do.” Even Smart thought this was a bit ridiculous especially considering the fact that Scootaloo is a minor and is living on her own. In the last few days she’s been following the exploits of the ever disastrous Rainbow Dash, apparently Scootaloo looked up to her as some form of role model. “She’s a quiet little filly and only becomes exuberant because of only one mare, Rainbow Dash. Whenever Rainbow starts streaking her colors across the sky that little filly’s day brightens up considerably. The three most important things to that filly are her scooter, a wagon and her helmet. Her medical records are protected a lot harder than anything else about her and as such it is completely ambiguous whether or not she has living parents. I’ve noticed that she doesn’t like staying at her house. Usually most of her day is riding the scooter all around Ponyville and she makes constant attempts at flying.” “It’s kind of concerning that Celestia knows that all of this is going on.” It was another thing for Tress to put down on Twilight’s list of suspicious things surrounding Princess Celestia. Sunset Shimmer was still the only pony on the list of ponies Twilight disliked. “Maybe Twilight can send a letter to her mom to ask if she knows anything about this and I’ll talk to Cheers. Until then our hooves are tied on this situation. Now if you will excuse me I have to go see a zebra about something.” Tress started to slowly walk off with a contemplative look, she was perturbed by all the stuff she has just heard. Here she was thinking that Fluttershy and Smart wouldn’t believe her when they were into something much weirder then what she had just gotten into and finished in less than twelve hours. “Okay, just be careful in the forest Tress.” Fluttershy waved off Tress and turned back to Smart with a slightly broken hearted expression on her face. “Are you sure there’s nothing else any pony can do?” “Aside from just trying to get close to Scootaloo so that you become something like a big sister or a mother to her on an emotional level. Not really much, just try to befriend her on a day to day basis.” It was the best advice Smart could give, Scootaloo wasn’t all too bad off even if she was a loner and afraid of her home. “Just remember and keep in mind that she doesn’t like to be around her home.” “Thank you very much for looking into this for me.” Fluttershy sighed; Celestia was involved and wasn’t trying to help the filly further than this? Why didn’t Scootaloo have an active family member around her? What was going on with this little filly?