The noontime sun warmed the air outside of the school while the cool breeze carried the distinctive autumnal scent with it, which was a refreshing change from the increasingly stuffy schoolhouse the Crusaders had emerged from. The door slowly closed behind them, revealing the empty hallway vacated by their classmates that had already left for the City Hall. Scootaloo was grateful, for she didn’t want to deal with their snickering and stares again. As was becoming a habit for her, she found her head pointed downward again. She sighed loudly, which was followed by a gasp when she saw-
“My scooter!” Scootaloo cried. Her vehicle lay pushed on to its side, the left handle of the handlebar deeply embedded into the dirt. Her purple and white striped helmet was a couple of feet away, upside down and filled with dirt and leaves. Scootaloo galloped to her scooter, while Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle dashed to pick up and clean out her helmet.
“Ah can’t believe that somepony would do this,” Apple Bloom grimaced, dirtying her hoof as she scraped and swept the padding inside in an effort to clean all of the dirt out. Sweetie Belle marched towards Scootaloo, who was struggling to pull the scooter free from the ground by the right side of the handlebars that wasn’t seemingly hammered into the ground. Scootaloo’s wings buzzed rapidly, trying to generate enough force to lift Scootaloo and her scooter up.
“Nnngh! Stupid wings!” She shouted as she released the handlebars, and like a slingshot, she catapulted backwards into Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo opened her eyes, and promptly shut them again as she found herself gazing straight into the sun. She exhaled deeply and uttered a defeated “whatever.” She then noticed that her head was not lying on the cool grass, but was resting instead on Sweetie Belle’s stomach, rising and falling jarringly as the Unicorn breathed erratically. Scootaloo bolted upwards, and immediately turned to face a pained Sweetie Belle lying on her back.
“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry!” She apologized, immediately extending a hoof to help her friend up. “I just, you know, got kinda frustrated. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“No,” Sweetie Belle groaned in a manner that proved quite contrary to what she said. “Just knocked the wind out of me, that’s all.” She wrapped her foreleg around Scootaloo’s, and lifted herself off the ground, coughing as she did so.
“What did we tell ya about apologizin’?” Apple Bloom interjected as she approached the two ponies and the scooter, Scootaloo’s helmet sitting awkwardly on her head, her large pink bow keeping it from fully enveloping her cranium. “We appreciate the concern an’ all, but trust me – a little tumble like that ain’t squat compared to some of our other stunts, remember?”
Scootaloo scratched at the back of her neck nervously. “Yeah,” she mumbled. “But it’s just, after what we talked about and went through back there, I realized that you two are like, my only friends, and I don’t want to-”
“Don’t want to what?” Apple Bloom interrupted again. “Hurt our feelings?”
“…something like that, yeah,” Scootaloo admitted.
"I don’t know, Apple Bloom,” Sweetie Belle said cheerfully, wiping grass out of her mane. “I kinda like this newer, sensitive Scootaloo.”
“I am NOT sensitive!” Scootaloo blurted out crossly.
“You know what, Sweetie Belle? Ah think yer right. She is actin’ awfully sweet.” Apple Bloom replied in the same cheerful manner.
“I’m not sweet either! I’m cool,” Scootaloo said stoutly.
“Who says that you can’t be all three?” Sweetie Belle pondered. “Like Raaainbow Dash?”
“Hey! Rainbow Dash is nothing BUT cool!” Scootaloo retorted.
“She seemed pretty sweet an’ sensitive to ya on that campin’ trip, from what you told us,” Apple Bloom reminded her.
Scootaloo’s face was the same color as Apple Bloom’s hidden bow. “That was… that wasn’t sweet or sensitive. That was being awesome. There’s a difference,” she stated factually.
“Well, it makes no difference to us,” Sweetie Belle responded. “We know you’ve got a softer side, even if you don’t want to admit it. After all, you were just as excited to help with setting up Big Mac and Miss Cheerilee on a date last year as we were, remember? Or being the flower fillies at the wedding in Canterlot?”
Scootaloo merely grumbled something about “being supportive,” her face now matching Apple Bloom’s mane in color.
“Speakin’ of bein’ supportive, how about we help you get your scooter out, so we can get this to Twilight?” Apple Bloom suggested, already taking up a position by the apparatus.
“Oh no – I’ve got it, Apple Bloom! It’s my scooter, after all and-” Scootaloo resisted, eagerly cantering towards the farm pony, who was already sizing up the capsized vehicle.
“Nonsense,” Apple Bloom insisted. “Pullin’ things outta the ground is an Earth pony specialty.” Rather than pulling at the handlebars like Scootaloo had done, she instead pushed her forelegs against the board of the scooter, currently on its’ side, and offered a hefty shove. With a tearing sound, the buried handlebar tore through the grass and dirt as the scooter jolted upright, sending bits of black and green earth catapulting to the sky. Apple Bloom quickly leapt back before her momentum carried her face first into the ground, and Scootaloo grabbed her scooter to keep it from falling again.
“Wow,” Scootaloo marveled, looking down at the rip in the ground, and how seemingly effortlessly it had appeared on behalf of Apple Bloom’s endeavor. “How’d you do that?” She inquired.
“Leverage,” Apple Bloom answered plainly, removing the helmet from her head, her bow springing upward, revealing clumps of brown dirt atop her head. She turned the helmet over, peering into it, the slight lean causing a trickle of silt to fall back into the apparatus. This elicited a giggle from the farm pony, no stranger to dirt herself. “Oops,” she chuckled. “Ah didn’t clean it as well as Ah thought. Let me just get this out.”
“That’s alright,” Scootaloo waved her hoof dismissively, stretching her foreleg out underneath the helmet strap in Apple Bloom’s grasp. Turning the headgear upside down, she shook it rapidly to get whatever excess dirt she could out before placing it snugly over her messy purple mane, which judging from the granules she felt against her forehead, just got messier. “We’re used to getting dirty, right?” More than anything, she just wanted to get away from the schoolhouse.
Sweetie Belle shuffled up to Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, frantically scrabbling at the dirt that had showered onto their faces. “Girls!” She squeaked. “We’re going to see a princess! We have to look our best!” Scootaloo gulped. She had almost forgotten where it was they were going to, and who they were going to go see. Twilight Sparkle – PRINCESS Twilight Sparkle. She didn’t relish the thought, and it showed on her face.
“Don’t you worry none, Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom offered, scraping away the last of the earth on her forehead. “She probably won’t be happy about what you did to Diamond Tiara, but Ah’m sure that she’ll understand once she reads Cheerilee’s letter and sees it from your perspective.”
Scootaloo sighed, mounting her scooter dejectedly. “I hope you’re right, Apple Bloom.” She thought of all the things that Princess Twilight would do to her as punishment. Images flashed through her head of all sorts of horrible things… what if she let Diamond Tiara get back at her? She saw herself tied to a chair, Diamond Tiara striking at her face and laughing maniacally, Princess Twilight and Spike enjoying the show with a bucket of popcorn. Scootaloo supposed that wouldn’t be too bad – it would be a good chance to prove she was made of tough stuff to Rainbow Dash if she could make it without crying or breaking down. That silver lining soon vanished when she imagined herself banished from Ponyville at Twilight’s royal decree, forbidden to ever set hoof in the township again. That wouldn’t be so bad either, she decided. It’s not like she wasn’t used to-
“You ready to go there, Scoots?” Sweetie Belle asked behind her. The duo had tied the wagon to the scooter while she’d been contemplating her fate, and were both patiently sitting in it waiting for Scootaloo to start moving them.
“What?” Scootaloo blurted, her head jerking behind her. “Oh – right. To the library.” Her wings unfurled slowly, twitched, and then buzzed to life. She turned the vehicle to the town center, and slowly accelerated forward. Her unusually easy pace didn’t go unnoticed.
“You sure you’re alright, Scootaloo?” Apple Bloom queried. “Yer goin’ awfully slow.”
The Crusaders coasted alongside the Elm Tree Eatery, the delicious odor of hay fries and toasted sandwiches wafting in Scootaloo’s nostrils. She conveniently remembered that neither she nor her friends had eaten lunch yet. “I’m just hungry, is all,” she remarked. “Can’t go full throttle on an empty stomach, you know?” Scootaloo laughed falsely. Though she didn’t see it, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle turned to face each other in another wordless exchange.
“Still worried about what Princess Twilight’s gonna think?” Sweetie Belle concluded.
“…A little,” Scootaloo conceded.
“Well, don’t be! Believe it or not, Princess Twilight really likes us,” Sweetie Belle exclaimed with her signature cheeriness.
“She does? Why?” Scootaloo asked confusedly, taking her eyes of the road for a second to look back at her friends.
“Well, for one, she’s really proud of our routine for the Equestria Games,” Sweetie Belle stated. “She told us she couldn’t think of a better way to have Ponyville introduced.”
“She said that? Really?” Scootaloo called back in disbelief.
“Yeah!” Apple Bloom answered this time. “She said that even if Ponyville didn’t win a single event, we could at least walk away with havin’ the best flag wavin’ routine.”
“Nu-uh,” Scootaloo shook her head, grinning all the same.
“Yup!” Apple Bloom countered. “It’s all true, ev’ry word.”
Scootaloo’s grin faltered. “Well… of course she’d say that. She doesn’t want us to make her or her town look bad.”
Sweetie Belle cleared her throat. “Reason two, she admires how we try all sorts of different things. She even said that she’d be willing to help us learn new skills if we wanted to,” she continued, ignoring Scootaloo’s projections.
“That sounds nice, I guess.” Scootaloo said with reluctance.
“Of course, we ain’t gonna do that without ya, Scootaloo, and we told her so,” Apple Bloom chimed in. “What if one of us got our cutie mark, and you weren’t there? That’d be just terrible!”
Through the marketplace now. Did the autumn air always make apples so fragrant? “Why would you say that to her? She probably thinks I’m just holding you two back now,” Scootaloo groaned.
“Because it’s the truth,” Apple Bloom answered with the plaintive quality that only the Apple family could. “Twilight actually asked about ya a lot during our school work. She says she’s barely seen ya since the coronation. Just a bit curious, is all.”
Scootaloo remained silent. She knew what the girls were hinting at, and she didn’t want to tell them. Scootaloo had never even audibly admitted to herself why she avoided the newly crowned Princess Twilight, because she knew how selfish it would sound to hear her voice utter the reason. Just like when one of their classmates earned their cutie mark, Scootaloo felt the same painful sting that seemed to strike at her very core when it occurred. Her pace increased as her heart rate climbed. Seeing the city hall fast approaching, she made a quick turn to avoid it, and the possible glimpse of one of her classmates again. The trio found themselves speeding past several newsstands, most of the advertising seemingly geared towards fashions and the like – stuff Rarity would be into.
“Hey, nice riding today, kid!” Shouted a pale brown colt with a beret standing beside a newspaper stand as Scootaloo and her friends rode past him. Scootaloo offered a quick nod in his direction before turning left towards Golden Oaks library.
“What was that about?” Sweetie Belle asked quizzically, looking behind her at the colt who had resumed his work, shouting about events no doubt detailed in the newspaper he was selling, the Ponyville Times.
“Oh that-” Scootaloo laughed nonchalantly. “I did a pretty cool trick on my scooter this morning before I picked you up, Sweetie Belle. A really neat tailspin. He gave me applause and everything,” she added hastily, pulling up and back on the handlebars as her wings halted. The Crusaders slowly rolled to a stop in front of their destination, The Golden Oaks library.
Scootaloo removed her helmet, using her hoof to wipe away the dirt that had nestled itself in her violet mane, while Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle exchanged another glance. The duo stumbled out of the wagon as Scootaloo leaned her transport against the smooth bark of the tree with unusual fixation to the angle at which it stood. The two stared at her for almost thirty seconds before Sweetie Belle spoke.
“I don’t think it’s going anywhere, Scootaloo.” The Pegasus winced when she heard Sweetie Belle address her by name.
“I-I know. I’m just uhhh… checking for damage,” Scootaloo stammered. “You girls go on inside, I’ll meet you in just a minute.”
“Everything seemed fine on the trip over,” Apple Bloom raised her eyebrow suspiciously.
Scootaloo laughed nervously. “Well, you never know. Things can fall apart when you least expect it!” She suddenly found her front hooves pushing into the ground as she slid forward, both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom using their heads as bulldozers, pushing her forwards towards the door. “W-wait! I’m not ready yet!”
“We’re going to go in, and you’re gonna like it!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.
“How could I possibly enjoy being banished from Ponyville?” Scootaloo shouted frantically, her hooves scrambling to push back and failing miserably.
“She ain’t gonna banish nopony, now stop…being…so…orn…orden…ornd…” Apple Bloom enunciated, each word being met with a forceful headbutt to Scootaloo’s back.
“Ornery?” Sweetie Belle suggested, opening the door to the library, a gentle tinkle from the bell sounding as she did so.
“That’s it!” Apple Bloom cried, offering a final push that lifted Scootaloo into the air towards the open door.
“What are you,” Scootaloo asked as she sailed past Sweetie Belle, her hooves flailing about. “A dictionary?”
Sweetie Belle beamed proudly, and she and Apple Bloom trotted inside after her.