The dust swirled as the filly exhaled into the air, the sunlight illuminating each speck. She sighed, letting the light heat up her fur. Lying down on the floor, she stretched, looking around the attic.
There were boxes stacked on top of boxes, and in the few spots there weren’t boxes, random things lay strewn about. An old toy from when she was little. The deconstructed clock...buckets of paint.
She closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of the sun on her warm fur. Twisting around, she arched her back and opened her eyes.
To a spider less than an inch away from her muzzle.
The pegasus shrieked, leaping to her hooves and hovering up into the air. The spider, sensing the vibrations, scuttled away. Calming herself down, the foal squished the bug under her hooves.
Turning a hoof over, she grimaced at the spider guts smeared on her orange fur.
“Eww,” Scootaloo said and wiped her hoof on a nearby box. She didn’t find spiders scary; they were just gross when dead.
She proceeded to clean her hoof until the original idea for coming up here came to her: She had to find the picture of her as a filly for a school project. After asking her dad repeatedly for a chance to come out to her grandfather’s house and work on the assignment, he finally gave in and flew her out to his house in the countryside. The filly could hear them talking below her. They had let her come up on her own; giving some directions that she had already forgotten to find pictures. Sighing, she glanced around.
The pegasus filly quickly spotted the box with the words ‘Photos’ scribbled on it. Dragging the box out into the clearing she was previously in, she opened the box. Luckily, it hadn’t been taped shut or anything.
Peering down into the box, she coughed as the stench hit her. Reaching in, Scootaloo pulled out the first photo album. It was silver with a metal cover. The filly ran her hoof over the stars engraved in it before flipping it open.
The first picture was of ponies she didn’t know eating at a table. She turned the page again. More unknown ponies. Scootaloo turned the page again and considered putting away this album. She didn’t know what was even going on, and the pictures looked old enough to be before she was even born.
One more picture, and if I still don’t know what’s happening I’ll try again.
The next picture was of her father and mother at their wedding. The idea of putting away the album was gone as Scootaloo gazed at the photos.
Most of them were of her mother at the reception. She looked pretty; an orange pegasus with a bright orange and white mane. There were a few pictures of the cake, and other ponies, but Scootaloo skipped those, she wanted to look at her mom.
Turning the page, the filly looked at her mother, without her dress, leaving for her honeymoon. Scootaloo remembered what her father had said: it was a cruise.
The filly didn’t know how long she spent up there, gazing at each photo. They still continued to feature her mother, which the pegasus was grateful for.
Suddenly, the page grew blurry. Scootaloo rubbed her eyes, but her hooves came away wet. She looked at her mom again. If she had been here, things would have been different. Things would have been better.
A tear slid down Scootaloo’s cheek as she turned the page to find the slot blank. And the next slot. And the next one. All the way till the end.
Memories they never had together as a family. Because she left.
Scootaloo curled up on the floor of the attic and began to cry, for the first time in years, for her dead mother.