The air was thick and heavy with heat, and the weight of it clung to the fillies.
And still, they sat around the campfire. The three didn't even once think about complaining. To complain about the heat would be to complain about everything the heat wrapped in itself and kept tight. They'd have to grumble about the twilight birds singing their final encore of the evening and the crickets eating at the corners of the oncoming silence with a distant and rhythmic drone. Their smiles would have to be tempered from the smell of moss crackling in the firepit and the tiny hurricanes that blew through the grass and ruffled their tent.
In the quickly darkening field with jars full of fireflies and sugared snacks, their minds swelled with plans and ideas, cultivated by their unprecedented freedom. Tomorrow, they'd trudge back to Ponyville, which just now was only a collection of fuzzy lights and indistinct noises, and resume their lives as if it had never happened, but before they had even reached the campsite, the fillies knew this night would stay with them forever.
This was the night that the Cutie Mark Crusaders grew up and learned the world.
"Are you sure the s'mores are supposed to taste like this?" Scootaloo said after a bite of hers, holding the rest of it to the sky, silhouetted it against the dusky horizon. She turned it over in her hooves as if examining for any obvious imperfections.
"I'm positive," Applebloom said, "Look, if y’all don't like the way I made them, you can make them yourself next time."
"Nah, nah, it's okay. Forget I said anything." Scootaloo took another bite and chewed it for longer than normal. It tasted kind of like ash.
The two fillies sat quiet for a minute, Applebloom slowly spinning a marshmallow-speared stick above the fire. The sound of zippers and rummaging broke the sounds of summer twilight, and the tent behind them shook slightly every few seconds.
"Did you find it, Sweetie Belle?" Applebloom yelled in the direction of the tent.
"Not yet!" Sweetie Belle shouted back, her words as if she were speaking through a mouth full of cotton. "Are you sure your sisser packed it?"
"I'm positive," Applebloom said again. "Look, I told her we were gonna make a fire and she said make sure you don't go burning yourself and I said I wouldn't and she said she was gonna pack me some burn ointment just in case. You were there, Sweetie. That's what she said. It's in there somewhere. Didn't even think we'd need it but..."
"Come in here and help me look for it!"
"You're the filly who couldn't wait a second to eat her marshmallow!"
"You're the filly who made them hot enough to burn her," Scootaloo said in a voice that she thought was under her breath.
Applebloom turned towards her, and Scootaloo could have sworn for a second that underneath her friend’s scowl was a mouthful of nails ready to be spat out.
"Whaddya mean by that? S'mores are supposed to be hot, Scootaloo!"
"Yeah, sure, Applebloom. You realize that once Sweetie Belle's mom finds out we burnt her daughter's tongue, she's probably never gonna let us hang out with her again, right?"
"Well, that's easy. We just won't tell her," Applebloom grumbled, watching helplessly as the marshmallow melted around her stick and slumped into the fire, forever consumed.
Scootaloo gestured to the tent, attempting to speak through a mouth full of chocolate and graham cracker. After a few seconds of mumbling, she closed her eyes and pushed it down her throat. "You really think blabbermouth in there is gonna keep her mouth shut? You heard her mom go on and on earlier about her precious baby, not wanting her to go out alone, past curfew, couldn't we just camp in the backyard, maybe, blah blah blah. You know as well as I do that she's gonna tie Sweetie Belle up to a chair the second she gets home and quiz her on everything that went wrong."
Grunting, Scootaloo pushed herself off the ground and wandered over to the paper plate Applebloom had begun to crowd with the half-burnt remains of s'mores. She turned one over with her hoof and sifted through the rest. "If so much as a single poof of her mane is out of place she's gonna lock Sweetie in her room for the next few years. Goodbye Cutie Mark Crusaders. She almost had a panic attack when we first told her about this."
"Well, let's just run away, then."
Scootaloo stopped in place on her way back to the comfortable patch of dirt she'd chosen to lay in for the last hour.
"Are you serious, Applebloom?"
"Yeah, we'll just sneak back home, pack up some food and some other stuff, steal Granny's wagon and be off down the road. We'll hit up Manehattan and Baltimare and all the cities of Equestria. We'll travel the world," Applebloom made a wide, slow arching movement into the sky with her free hoof. "and experience it all...Cutie Marks and beyond."
Scootaloo stared at her, her heart beginning to race. Her breath came in slow, heavy sighs.
"Okay." Scootaloo tapped the ground. "We'll have to get started now, they're not expecting us back until evening. Let's leave notes, too, so they won't worry. But maybe we'll lie to them, tell them we're going some place we aren't and give us some time-"
"I was joking around, Scoots. We can't run away. Granny'd worry herself sick."
A needle stabbed deep into Scootaloo's heart. A sudden lifelessness.
"Oh."
Scootaloo collapsed on the dirt. For a few minutes, the only sound that she heard was the crackling of the fire, and all she saw was a wet, orange-red blur. Applebloom coughed, and put in another marshmallow on the sharpened stick.
Sweetie Belle burst out of the flap of their small, clown-colored tent, a white tube clenched between her teeth.
"Found it!" she cried, muffled, and spat the object at Applebloom's feet.
"See, Sweetie Belle?" She gave the unicorn a gentle bump on the nose. She flashed a smile at Scootaloo, but her friend was as stoic and indifferent as a statue. Withholding a sigh, she turned back to Sweetie. "I told ya my sister packed it. She's been camping all her life, she knows what to do."
"There was so much stuff in there it's like she planned on us being out here for a week!" Sweetie said, smiling, the pain of her burn apparently forgotten. "Mom forgets to pack my stuff for lunch all the time...it must be really nice to have such a responsible sister helping you out with everything, Applebloom."
Applebloom felt a familiar warmth creep up and through her. Her face grew hot. "Well, I suppose it's something. Not every sister's as nice as Applejack. Are you forgettin' Rarity sewin' up our sleeping bags, though? She's looking out for us too, in her way." She gently put the stick down and lifted the white tube from the ground. Sticking the cap in her mouth, she twisted the tube in her hooves.
"Yeah, I suppose you're right. I mean, I hadn't thought that she'd-"
"Open yer mouth, Sweetie," Applebloom said with the cap still in her teeth. "Lessee how bad this burn is."
Sweetie Belle opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue. A smile was still twitching up the ends of her open mouth.
"I don't see anything wrong in here," Applebloom said, leaning closer and peering into the dark maw. "Are you sure you burnt yerself, Sweetie?”
Sweetie Belle mumbled something indiscernible through her open mouth. Scootaloo turned towards the pair of them.
"Alright, alright, hold out your tongue so I can fix ya right up," Applebloom said, spitting the cap out and holding the tube in a pair of shaky hooves as Sweetie Belle slowly extended her tongue. Sticking her own tongue out of her mouth and biting on it, Applebloom held out the tube, holding it over Sweetie Belle's face. Taking a deep breath and steadying her grip, she lined up the shot and prepared to squeeze a huge dollop of ointment in the middle of Sweetie Belle's tongue.
"You two aren't serious right now, are you?" Scootaloo picked herself up from the dirt.
"Whaddya mean?" Applebloom said. Sweetie Belle made a noise.
"What do I mean?" She walked over. "You can't put ointment on Sweetie Belle's tongue. Do you know what that could do to her? It could be poisonous or something."
Applebloom blinked at her, then brought her hooves back down to the ground. Sweetie Belle's eyes flitted back and forth between her friends, tongue still arched into the open air.
"Well," Applebloom huffed, "aren't you just little Miss-Full-Of-Lectures, tonight. How do you figure something like ointment is poisonous, anyway? Applejack wouldn't pack us anything poisonous."
"Applebloom, with the S'mores you've been trying to feed me tonight, I no longer trust your ability to tell the difference between something that's safe to eat and something that's not."
"Well, for one, Miss Smarty Pants, for the rest of the night, you can make your own S'Mores, and for two, if it's so poisonous, why doesn't it say anything on the tube, huh?"
"Probably because they didn't expect any fillies to be dumb enough to try to use it like toothpaste, Applebloom! Look, if you think Sweetie's mom is gonna throw a fit cause her tongue's a little bit burnt, then just think what she's going to do if we end up running back to Ponyville and taking Sweetie to the hospital! Or if we send her home and all of a sudden she starts puking everywhere! It's like I'm the only one here who realizes we have to go back to Ponyville and face our parents tomorrow!" She didn't know she was crying until she felt the tears on her cheeks.
"Ahright, ahright, calm down Scootaloo, I won't poison our little crybaby friend here."
"Hey!" Sweetie Belle said, finally snapping her mouth shut, then opening and closing it. "Now my jaw hurts."
Scootaloo brushed the tears out of her eyes then trotted over to Sweetie Belle and sat down next to her. "Oh look, already over the burn, huh? Shocker. The way you were crying a few minutes ago I expected your tongue to be burnt to a crisp now."
"Scootaloo..." Applebloom said in a way that reminded Scootaloo of an admonishing parent.
"Oh, come on Applebloom. Sweetie knows I'm just kidding around. Right, Sweetie?" Without waiting for an answer, she leaned over and gripped Sweetie Belle in a hug rough enough to make the unicorn squeal in surprise. They both started laughing. Watching them laugh into each other's ears, Applebloom slowly shook her head, smiling and chuckling softly herself.
"So," Sweetie Belle said once she had untangled herself from Scootaloo's grasp. Her burn now was truly forgotten, and Scootaloo wondered if the panicky filly would even be able to remember the wound come morning.
"What should we do next?"
The ponies knew that you had to do things during camping trips - there was an understanding developed through years of osmosis from legends, stories, and anecdotes from their relatives. Camping trips were exciting, like an adventure that didn't have to leave your tent. If the fillies weren't excited, it felt like they might have been somehow jilting the freedom they'd been granted.
"Oh, I know!" Sweetie Belle suddenly cried, her voice breaking from the excitement. The two other fillies, who'd been sitting in the silence, jumped at her screech. "I'll get the agenda!" Sweetie Belle bounced up from her seat and started marching back to the tent.
"Sweetie Belle," Scootaloo said.
The unicorn stopped, and looked at her.
"Forget the agenda."
"But..."
"Sit back down, and forget about the agenda."
"B-but my mom-"
“Sweetie, do you even know what the word agenda means?”
“What?”
“Just sit back down.”
Sweetie Belle froze, then stepped slowly back to her seat. Her mouth opened and closed, on the verge of protesting, then she plopped her rump back between her friends.
“What it means, Sweetie Belle,” Scootaloo rose and began pacing back and forth. “What agenda means is that your parents are still trying to tell us what to do, even all the way out here. What it means is that Applebloom and I pretty much had to agree to be your mom’s slave for the rest of our lives to get her to let you come out here with us. What it means is that we’ve earned and we deserve this one night of freedom from all of that, from all the rules and from parents telling us what to do all the time.”
Scootaloo was grinning. The other two looked up at her, shifting slightly.
She stopped, and pointed at the tent.
“And what kind of a friend would I be if after all that...after all the work we’ve done, what sort of friend would I be if I let you take out an agenda that your mom wrote for you to keep her clammy hooves around you even if she can’t be here. I’m not gonna let you listen to your mom. You’re your own filly tonight, Sweetie! You can do whatever you want! We don’t have to have planned conversations about boring stuff! We don’t have to wait until ‘snacktime’ to eat! Isn’t that exciting? How can you not want to take advantage of it!?”
Scootaloo was breathing heavily as she finished. Applebloom and Sweetie were still staring wide-eyed at her, but their smiles matched hers now.
“Well, ain’t you feeling rebellious today, Scoots?” Applebloom said as Scootaloo fell back into place beside Sweetie.
"Always," Scootaloo said between deep breaths of the burnt air, "just now, there's no parents around to yell at me for it."
The girls listened to the crackling of fire for a while as Scootaloo caught her breath.
"Well," Applebloom said, "much as your speech is inspirin' and all, upliftin' for us oppressed fillies an' such, it still leaves us with the question of what exactly we should be doin' right now."
Fillies given a blank canvas are often lost when asked to start painting, Cheerilee's voice rapted in Scootaloo's mind.
"So," Sweetie Belle said, her voice dry. "What now?"
"Well...I was thinkin'..." Applebloom trailed off.
"Yeah?"
"An' feel free to give me a stern talkin' to if this doesn't fit into your idea of what our freedom for fillies campin' trip is supposed to be, Scoots..."
"'Course."
"Well...I think we're in agreement that we're the best and closest friends who've ever existed in all of Equestria." Applebloom didn't need to see the flurry of nods that followed to know her friends believed that with all their heart. "But sometimes...it feels like there are things we don't know about each other. Now, I'm not sayin' we've lied or anything...maybe we just haven't had a chance to talk about some things? I know I have some questions for you fillies."
Applebloom drank down a glass of ice tea as the other fillies stood rapt.
"So, I was thinkin'...we start sharin' secrets. That's something friends do, right?"
Immediately warm to the idea, Sweetie Belle grinned and nodded. Scootaloo brought her hoof up to her chin.
"Sounds pretty...I dunno, girly. Sounds like something your sister would do with Fluttershy or something," she said, nudging Sweetie Belle, "Now these secrets we're gonna be sharing...are they the type of secrets you'd keep from your parents? The kind you'd be afraid if they knew about?"
Applebloom nodded sagaciously, and spoke through a mouthful of marshmallow. "What kinda proper secrets would they be if they ain't?"
Staring at her friend in silence for a few seconds, Scootaloo slowly, against her will, felt a sly smile creep up her face.
"Alright, then," she said, leaning back. "Let's do it."
"So, who should go first?" Applebloom kept her eyes on her friends as her hoof fumbled around blindly at the plate of s'mores.
Sweetie Belle opened her mouth, then closed it again, and Scootaloo was silent, her thoughts moving faster than she could get ahold of them.
"Suppose it was my idea, anyway, I think it's fair that I go first?" The other two fillies eyes lit up, and their grins widened as they scooted closer to their friend.
"I think I got a good one to start us off. Not anything that's a big deal but..." Applebloom nibbled on the corner of a s'more, trying in vain to not make a mess of her mouth while she told her truth. "You know that stuff that adults sometimes drink? It's that stuff doesn't taste very good and we’re told we aren't allowed to have. I've heard it called a lot of different names by the folks in Ponyville, Applejack calls it 'Cider for grown-ups'."
Her face hardening and smile fading, Scootaloo gave a slow, grim nod at the same time that Sweetie Belle was shaking her head no.
"Well, anyway, the point is, we ain't supposed to be drinkin' it. One time Granny saw me tryin' to sneak a sip and she put me in the corner for a whole hour. Well, that very night," Applebloom quieted her voice and leaned in closer, the fire making diabolic shadows leap across her visage. They never knew when adults might be listening, even now. "That same night, not a day after I'd got done apologizin' to Granny and swearin' I'd never touch the stuff again, I sneaked out of bed when the moon was at the top of the sky. I knew where they'd kept the stuff, I'd seen Applejack get a bottle out often enough. So I reached in, took a bottle of this adult cider from the back of the cabinet, and whisked it off to the Clubhouse."
"You went to the Clubhouse in the middle of the night?" Sweetie Belle gasped. She held a hoof to her mouth, and Scootaloo would have thought she was pantomiming if she hadn't known the unicorn was about as self aware as a pile of bricks. "Wasn't it scary? There could have been monsters!"
Applebloom used the interruption to wolf down the last of her s'more, and waved off Sweetie Belle's concerns as she swallowed it. "'Course it was scary, so scary that Granny and AJ'd never think I'd wander there in the middle of the night. I'm a brave pony, though. That's what they don't know. And 'sides I couldn't have one of them catch me with that stuff, or my rump would be so sore I couldn't sit down without bawlin'. I've heard how much louder Applejack gets when she's drank some of that stuff, so I didn't wanna risk it."
Her hoof still covering her open, awed mouth, Sweetie Belle's eyes seemed to grow wider at each word. Scootaloo stared hard at Applebloom, the ash blowing in her direction making her blink more often than she'd like.
"Anyway, once I got to clubhouse, I decided I wasn't about to let that go to waste by being a little baby about it. So I started drinking it right there. It was something else, it tasted like cider's that's been in the sun too long. Kinda gross if 'in I'm being honest, but I managed to drink the whole gosh darned bottle right there."
Sweetie Belle started clapping her hooves in delight and giggled furiously. Scootaloo only spoke when, after a few seconds, she was sure that there was no more story to tell.
"Wow, Applebloom, I didn't think you'd have it in you. So what was this like? I can't imagine it was any fun. I know ponies who drink that stuff, and they don’t seem to have any fun. Should I be mad that you didn't think to invite your very best friends in the whole wide world to your little adult cider time?"
"Well, Miss Scootaloo, I'll have you know it was very fun and I'm planning on snatching up some more when I think Granny won't miss it so all of us can try it.”
Scootaloo glanced back at the fire, resting her head on one hoof.
“Yeah, I think Granny bought it cause I almost cried when I was first apologizin' to her, but she'll get suspicious if any more went missing. Drinkin' that stuff just made me feel sick at first, but then it started to feel...really weird. I can't explain it. It was like feelin' really dizzy or something."
"Dizzy?" Sweetie Belle's voice cracked in surprise. "Dizzy doesn't sound fun at all!"
Applebloom shook her head. "It wasn't dizzy like you've been spinnin' around a bunch or somethin'. It was dizzy like...almost like your brain was full of cotton candy or something like that. It was really hard to think about stuff, and I couldn't stop smilin'. It was making me tingle all over, everything seemed happy. I can't wait to try it again. I'm sure you girls'll like it."
Applebloom chuckled. "Least I'll say is that I know for sure why Applejack and Big Macintosh are so keen on grabbing a bottle each and locking themselves in his room every friday night. They must be havin' a ton of fun in there. Grown-ups get all the cool stuff. Even their drinks are better than ours."
"So Granny Smith never found out?" Sweetie Belle put a childlike amount of emphasis on the word 'never', as if she was responding to an unbelievable fairy tale that Applebloom was simply entertaining her with.
"Nope," Applebloom shook her head, "never. Least I never heard about it if she did, and I think I would. Though...I did spend the way back to the farm in the mornin’ makin’ sick all over the place. But it was worth it.”
The fire was cracking, and Scootaloo stared deep into it. She'd never had any of this 'adult cider' in the house, but she used to have drinks that were similar enough. If, one dark and conspiratorial night sometime in the future, Applebloom summoned them all to the clubhouse and unzipped her backpack, and against the speckled beam from her flashlight there was a glint of glass and then an illuminated bottle of dark liquor, Scootaloo didn’t know what she would do.
"Even the mighty Applebloom got sick from a little cider?" Scootaloo said, interrupting the subdued conversation between Applebloom and Sweetie.
"Listen here, missy, I'd like to see you try to drink some. You can have the whole bottle next time I manage to snatch some away from the farm. I told my secret and in my opinion it was a darn good one, so how about you quit yer ribbin' until its your turn, huh?" Applebloom waved the cindered end of the stick menacingly at Scootaloo, but her face was stretched with a smile.
Scootaloo let out an exaggerated sigh. "Well, my story is so awesome that it'll probably leave you fillies stunned for the rest of the night. I don't want to steal anyone's thunder, you know. So I think maybe Sweetie Belle should go next, for both of your sakes. Let's get the wimpy secrets out of the way first."
"Typical Scoots." Applebloom shook her head. "All bark, no bite."
"No." Sweetie Belle smiled, and inched closer to the fire. "It's okay, Applebloom, I think I've got a secret I'm ready to tell."
She was silent, and looked at the fire while her friends looked at her. Her chest was moving in the shadows of the flames - taking air in deep then exhaling silently.
"Sweetie," Applebloom said, putting a hoof on her shoulder. "You don't gotta tell us anything you don't want to. We're just messin' around here, if you ain't comfortable don't let Scootaloo pressure you into anything."
Scootaloo ignored the jab. "She's right, Sweetie, don't think you've gotta-"
"No, no," Sweetie Belle took a final deep breath and blew it out over the fire. "I've been meaning to tell you guys for a really long time, and I think you deserve to know. I'll feel better when I've told you. Honest."
"Take your time, Sweetie."
"Yeah, no rush."
"Okay..." Sweetie Belle licked her lips, and closed her eyes. "You know how sometimes we talk about boys and stuff and how gross they are and all that. And how we always agree that they have cooties and how we'll never ever like a boy even though our moms or sisters say that will change. Remember how we promised each other that we'd never let that change no matter what?"
Scootaloo glanced over at Applebloom, and the earth pony rolled her eyes.
"Yeah..." Scootaloo said.
"Sweetie, you don't mean..."
Sweetie swallowed. "I...girls, I...have a crush on Pipsqueak. I've been talking to him after school every couple days while you two were on your ways home."
Scootaloo and Applebloom blinked, and stared at each other.
Sweetie Belle still had her eyes closed, and her entire face was scrunched up. She was slouched, her whole body shaking.
"P-please don't hate me!"
Scootaloo and Applebloom were left speechless by Sweetie's confession, unable to find any appropriate words. Instead, their laughter rolled through the entire field, and echoed against the far trees of the Everfree.
Sweetie Belle's eyes snapped open, and the half-formed tears dried. She turned to Scootaloo and gave the filly a rough push. Already almost doubled over with laughter, Scootaloo's body barely budged.
"Girls! I can't believe you'd laugh at something like this!" Sweetie Belle's soft hooves beat on Scootaloo's torso, not even making a dent on the pegasus’s body. "I told you my deepest secret and you just...oh!"
No matter what Sweetie Belle did, the other two didn't cease, and eventually she just sat still, burning up with anger and embarrassment, a night long bawling and a sprint home just around the corner.
"S-Sweetie Belle, we ain't..." Applebloom said between gasps for breath, "we ain't laughing...at the fact you're crushin on little Pip'."
Scootaloo, still overcoming periodic fits of gentle giggling, leaned over and hugged Sweetie Belle. Sweetie was still shaking and silent.
"We couldn't care less if you and Pipsqueak up and got hitched." After Scootaloo finally stopped shaking with laughter and gave her a look, she continued, "Okay, well, maybe we'd care a little bit."
"Yeah, all that stuff with boys or whatever, no big deal, Sweetie. As long as you don't start dragging him to our Crusader meetings, you can do whatever you want. If you want to kiss a nerd like Pipsqueak and get his cooties, well, they're your lips."
"Hey!" Sweetie Belle sniffed back the tears after realizing she wasn't about to be ostracized from the Cutie Mark Crusaders for consorting with the enemy. A nervous smile played on her lips. "I think he's...cute, okay?"
"No accounting for taste," Applebloom said. Scootaloo nodded and patted Sweetie on the back like she was a poor lost puppy.
"What we were laughin' at, Sweetie," Scootaloo said, pulling her friend into a reciprocated hug, "was that you think something like that is a secret. That's about a much of a secret as Applebloom's bow is pink."
"Yeah," Applebloom said, "it's about as much of a secret as the fact that Scootaloo hasn't taken a bath in a week."
"Hey! My coat's not that dir-"
"Anyway, the point I'm trying to make, Sweetie, is that we both knew about your little meetins’ with Pipsqueak, we've both already talked it over with each other and decided if it makes you happy, then we're all for it. Just don't go spreadin' your boy germs to me or Scoots, and we'll be fine."
"O-oh..." Sweetie Belle had an ever changing flux of facial expressions, unsure exactly what she should be feeling right now, and decided that the most important thing would be not to cry. "S-so all that stuff about never being interested in boys, you think-"
"No, no, no," Scootaloo said, laughing. "Don't get us wrong, we still think you're completely crazy, but the only thing me and Applebloom can do is hope our little friend gets over this insanity soon."
"Anyway," Applebloom said.
"Anyway," Scootaloo repeated, "what's more important to both of us is the fact that is the lamest so-called secret you could have possibly thrown at us tonight. Applebloom and I are mighty disappointed, mighty disappointed. And I expect you to up your game a little bit before the end of the night. Remember, real, true, heart-pounding secrets. Not little schoolyard stuff."
"Okay," Sweetie Belle said, "I'll try my best!"
"Scootaloo, I think it means that's your turn," Applebloom said.
"Well, I'm not sure if that counts-"
"Girls?" Sweetie Belle interrupted, finally blinking away the last of mist crowding her vision, and breathing away the raw feeling the enveloped her coat. "I have an idea, if that's okay with you."
Scootaloo raised an eyebrow, and gave Applebloom a glance. "Sure, I mean. So long as it has nothing to do with you looking through the yearbook picking out coltfriends for us, I don't have any problems with it."
"Well, I was thinking..." Sweetie Belle said, "this whole telling secrets thing is a good idea but there's some things in particular I'd like to know about you girls so...is it okay if we ask some questions? We can still tell secrets, because, well...I have some stuff in mind that I don't think you'd want to talk about, anyway."
"Huh, that's not the Sweetie Belle I know," Applebloom frowned for a moment, but her expression quickly recovered to a smile, "...but I like it. That sounds like a great idea. Scoots?" Scootaloo nodded slowly, not sure about the direction this was taking but not prepared to halt the momentum of the night with any questions.
"Well, um, okay..." Sweetie Belle poked at the ground with a stick, idly drawing nondescript symbols in the dirt. "I was wondering...Well, I was wondering, what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you two?"
There was a jumpstart and bolt of sable lightning shot through Scootaloo's body and straight into her heart when she heard Sweetie Belle's words. First, Applebloom bragging about getting so drunk she threw up all over the place and now Sweetie Belle says this. There was something awful going on tonight and Scootaloo had no idea what it was, unable to decipher the conspiracy, not wanting to believe that something could ruin this night. Something inside her was tugged like a lawnmower cord - first, her heart stuttered, rumbled, and skipped a beat, then began loudly banging inside her chest, going faster and faster.
Sweetie Belle's question echoed in her ears, and carried with it a hold of other disorienting sensations. The smell of blackened vomit on the side of the moldy couch. The reverberating and slurred shouts that flowed through an empty home. Warm tears on young cheeks. The taste of running lipstick. Flinching away from other ponies touches, no matter how innocent, no matter how comforting. Pretending the bruises weren't there until she laid down at night and could pretend no longer, unable to stop the feeling of them against her spring-shorn mattress, unable to cry loud enough to not hear her own mother's sobbing join her an hour later, unable to stop the screaming of a broken household long enough to fall asleep. The feeling of waking up hungry and going to sleep hungry, and how the school's meals never tasted like the crumbling remains of cold cigarettes.
Blood dripping from broken glass, outlined in the moonlight.
The whimper began deep in Scootaloo's stomach. She could feel it running up her, through her, into her throat like bile and inescapably into the summer midnight, and not once at any stage did she feel the strength to stop it. Her only consolation was that she had learned to keep her involuntary complaints quiet. There was a time in her life when she couldn't let anypony hear them. The fireplace cackled loud enough to cover her.
Scootaloo hardly felt like Scootaloo anymore. It was like Sweetie Belle's words pulled her inside herself, and the Scootaloo she'd been pretending to be was just a shell over a frightened, mute filly that she'd been the entire time. Her friend's words were a trigger that caused Scootaloo to devolve somehow, and regress into something different, a filly she thought she shed a long time ago, a weaker filly full of stuttering and shivering. A damaged filly, broken into a million reflective pieces from an overwhelming pressure. A filly she hated, and never wanted to see again.
"...what?" Scootaloo said, without making the decision to, almost a reflex. She didn't know how much time had passed. It felt like an hour, but everything she knew about life so far had taught her that a blink could feel like forever if she was hurting bad enough.
"Wait!" Sweetie Belle cried, still smiling as Scootaloo stared at the flames. "No, no, no, let's do something else. I think Applebloom's story was really cool so we should do something like that...how about we tell each other the worst thing we've ever done?"
Scootaloo was silent, and blinked the ash out of her eyes. The feeling of fire on her face was somehow a comfort, and she'd rather stare into it for the rest of the night then turn to face her friends.
"The worst thing we've ever done?" Applebloom said, "what you mean like, disobeying teachers, actin' out against our parents and such like that?"
"Uh huh," Sweetie nodded, "stuff like that would work, of course. Stuff like what you just told us. But I was thinking that there's something more to, something that's not just about what your parents tell you to do...I mean, we've all been told dumb stuff by our parents and sisters that we disagree with and do anyway, so, it's not that big of a deal. I think I mean stuff that's like...really, really bad. Stuff we know we shouldn't have done, even long after we did it. Stuff we know is wrong. Stuff we regret. That's the kind of secrets I want to hear about."
"Huh. Interestin'." Applebloom tapped her chin a few times. "That sounds like it could get awful painful to bring up, if I'm understanding you right, and I still don't think we should tell each other stuff we ain't comfortable sharing."
"Oh, come on." Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. "What's the point of telling each other secrets if we're gonna be all scared about it. Right, Scootaloo? That's what you were talking about earlier, right? This is supposed to be stuff we're scared to tell. We're the best friends in all of Equestria. Best friends are for secret sharing, right? I already told you guys something I thought would make you not want to be my friends anymore, and just cause you laughed at it doesn't mean...it wasn't hard for me to tell it."
"I suppose," Applebloom said, "You know, you're awful passionate about this, Sweetie Belle. Do you have something to confess that's been eatin' away at you, or something?" She grinned at Sweetie Belle, but seeing the unicorn's normally docile and oblivious expression twisted into a rictus of determination wiped the smile off her face in an instant. "I suppose we can do this, but we gotta promise that nothing we say tonight leaves this campfire, right?"
Sweetie Belle gave a cursory nod. "That's right. This is confidential Cutie Mark Crusader Secret Sharers. They’re still secrets, just now they'll be between the three of us."
"Scootaloo? Promise?"
The fire spun with color and sound, sending large embered fissures through the dry wood that the fillies had sacrificed.
"...Scootaloo? You okay?"
Sweetie Belle nudged her. "Scoots?"
"What?" Scootaloo snapped and rounded on her friends. "What? Sure, yeah."
"Scootaloo, you okay?" Applebloom stood up.
Picking up an errant stick, Scootaloo prodded the fire. One of the hollow limbs they'd use to sustain the flame rolled over and collapsed to the bed of the firepit, sending a fleeting shower of copper and gold sparks into the sky.
"Fine," Scootaloo said, hiding the word in a hardly audible grunt.
"Do you wanna tell a secret, Scootaloo? Something you regret?" Sweetie Belle said, trying to hold her smile and hoping it would infect her friend.
"Scootaloo, we’re talkin' at you."
"Hmm?" Scootaloo turned up from her lazy perforation of the firepit and at her friend. "What?"
"Well, Sweetie’s done with her secret, and I already told one of mine, so I think it's only fair that you go next." Applebloom said. "...ifin' you're feelin' up for it, of course. You ain't been actin' yourself all night. Are you sure you're okay?"
"Fine. I'm just fine, Applebloom. I can tell a secret, sure."
"It's okay, Scootaloo," Sweetie Belle said, "You're the toughest filly I know, I'm sure you're strong enough to tell us any secret you have, right? I'm a wimp and couldn't even tell you guys stuff without being scared, but I know you're not scared of anything." Applebloom nodded calmly behind her. Scootaloo's expression didn't twitch.
"The worst thing I've ever done, eh?"
"That's what we're going for!" Applebloom said.
“Yep!” Sweetie Belle said.
Scootaloo paused, resuming poking the fire. There was something about her voice that was empty, almost lifeless. Like she was continually distracted by something, or talking to somepony other than the friends she had sitting next to her. She lowered to the ground, and held her head between both hooves.
"...the worst thing I've ever done," Scootaloo mused aloud again.
"Alright...I'll tell you the worst thing I've ever done." Scootaloo took in a deep breath, and he friends scooched closer to her.