~***~
“The crusade never ends!”
Scootaloo stood with her foreleg held to the sky and her tail waving in the wind. She was surrounded by a halo of dancing snowflakes that touched down lightly on her wingtips. She turned and brushed new-fallen snow off of her blank flank.
Four years had passed since Rainbow Dash had taken her on as an honorary younger sister. Two years since her two best friends had discovered their cutie marks. Five years since being a blank flank had gotten old.
Sweetie Belle looked up, a pencil in her mouth. She spoke around the eraser. “Shut the door before you turn the custard-filled donuts into frozen custard.”
Scootaloo kicked the door to Sugarcube Corner shut and pulled off her knit cap. “Hay guys. ’Sup?”
Apple Bloom bit into her cherry pie. With her mouth still full, she took a few licks of the ice cream scoop placed next to it. “Sweetie’s tryin’ tah write a new song.”
“It isn’t coming easy,” Sweetie said. “You can only rhyme ‘magic’ with so many words.”
Scootaloo pulled up a chair and looked over the display case from across the room. “Want me to help?”
Sweetie cringed. “No offense, Scootaloo, but the last song you wrote won an award for ‘best comedy performance.’”
“Sweet. I can be the next Cheese Sandwich.” Scootaloo brought a hoof to her mouth and belted out in her scratchy singing voice, “Yeah, I’ve stepped inside just once or twice, living in a Mustang paradise!”
“This is for an audition, Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle spat the pencil out. “This is for real! It has to be perfect!”
Scootaloo leaned back as her wings flapped out. “Sorry. Sorry.”
Sweetie Belle squinted. Her shoulders drooped as she sat back in her chair. She munched her cinnamon roll. “Sorry I snapped.”
Scootaloo shrugged and walked over to the counter to order blackberry pie. She returned to the table and dug in with a smile.
“Magic… magic…” Sweetie Belle rubbed her forehead. “What else rhymes with magic?”
“Tragic?” Apple Bloom said.
“Blackjack?” Scootaloo said.
“Blackjack does not rhyme with magic.” Sweetie Belle shook her head. “And why would I write about tragedy in a song about magic?”
“Go fer the hypotheticals.” Apple Bloom waved a hoof. “Mah life would be so tragic, if not fer friendship’s magic, la la la, doo wop doo.”
“Many thanks to Ponyville’s resident lyricist, Apple Bloom Apple.” Sweetie Belle clapped her hooves slowly. She narrowed her eyes as she looked across the room. “Hay, Apple Bloom, can you see what that sign says?”
Apple Bloom glanced over her shoulder. “Two fer one muffin special. Why?”
Sweetie gripped the table and rocked it back and forth. “Oh, for the love—! Ugh.”
“Whoa, you’re gonna upset the pie,” Scootaloo said. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m officially nearsighted, now.” Sweetie Belle slapped a hoof on the table. “Nearsighted. On top of everything else. Do you know how annoying that is?”
Apple Bloom rubbed her chin. “Is that the one where you can’t see things up close or far a—?”
“I just asked you to read me a sign!” Sweetie Belle shouted. “Obviously it’s the one where I can’t see the color purple!”
Apple Bloom lowered her eyebrows. She rolled up her paper plate, tossed it in the garbage, and began pulling on her winter gear. Her wooly coat covered up her apple blossom cutie mark. “Ah’ll see y’all later. Gonna head back to the farm.”
“You just got into town,” Scootaloo said. “You gonna crusade with us or not?”
“Not… today.” Apple Bloom synched up her trapper hat. “Granny ain’t been feelin’ too good. Ah’m gonna help Applejack take care of her.”
Sweetie Belle sucked her cheek in. “Give her our best wishes.”
“Yeah.” Scootaloo finished off her pie. “And tell her Scootaloo said ‘Get well soon.’”
“Sure thing, guys.” Apple Bloom stepped into the wintery air. “Good luck on the song, Sweetie. And on your cutie mark, too, Scoots.”
Sweetie Belle blew a breath through her lips before turning to Scootaloo. “What’s on the agenda for today? You wanna try for a snowplow cutie mark?”
“You’re hilarious.” Scootaloo leaned on her elbows. “I dunno. The older we get the more I think a cutie mark isn’t something I can get help with.”
Sweetie Belle nodded. “We helped Apple Bloom out quite a bit, I think. It’s been a couple years. Maybe you need a different approach?”
“With what?” Scootaloo slumped in her chair. “I can dance until my hooves fall off, I can do a bajillion tricks on the scooter, I’ve done a quadrillion stunts… and nothing’s worked.”
Sweetie Belle looked down at her flank, where her bell-and-music-notes cutie mark sat. “Maybe you need to do it like I did. Perform in front of a crowd. Let the cheers lift your heart.”
“Maybe, but I’ve never made my talents a secret.” Scootaloo chewed on her pie and her thoughts. “I gotta fly. That’s gotta be it.”
“You’ve been chomping at the same bit for five years,” Sweetie Belle said. “You’re twelve now. Maybe that’s what’s holding you back. You’ve got to acc—”
Scootaloo jumped up. “If you dare say I need to accept horseapples I’m stuffing gum in your mane. I don’t need to accept a cuss-darn thing except that I’m a pegasus.”
A cleared throat from across the room caught their attention. Mrs. Cake gestured to the small filly resting on her back, Pumpkin Cake. “Keep the swearing down, please. Little pitchers and big ears and all that.”
“Sorry,” Scootaloo said as she sat down. “Sorry.”
“Oh, don’t be too sorry, dear.” Cup Cake trotted up behind Scootaloo and rested her hooves on her shoulders. “We all say the wrong thing a time or two. Creator could tell all the times I’ve said something colorful after burning my hoof on the oven.”
Sweetie Belle picked her pencil up in her mouth and wrote down a line or two. She quickly crossed them off with a sigh.
Cup tilted her head. “How’s about a nice cup of hot cocoa, on the house. You two look like you could use some cheering up.”
“Thank you,” Scootaloo said.
While Mrs. Cake busied herself with a kettle, Sweetie Belle scribbled on her notepad.
Scootaloo rocked on her seat. “What’s your song about?”
“How magic feels.” Sweetie chewed on her eraser. “That feeling you get when your heart beats a little faster, and you can feel the life flowing through you. The tingle in your fairy strings. The warm glow from your horn.” She tapped her pencil against the table. “Well, I guess that last one is just for unicorns.”
“So what’s the holdup?”
“I know what I want to say, I know how I want the song to sound, it’s just”—Sweetie stuck her tongue out and brushed off bits of eraser—“getting this stuff on paper is hard. How are you supposed to describe feelings like that in a way everybody will understand?”
Scootaloo tapped her hooves together. “I got no idea.”
“Me either.” Sweetie crumpled up a page and tossed it into the trash can. “‘You’re gonna shine.’ Of course we shine, we’re stinking unicorns. We’ve got a built-in glow stick.”
Scootaloo pressed her lips together. “Could the song be about other kinds of ponies, too? Unicorns aren’t the only ones who know what magic feels like.”
“Yeah…” Sweetie Belle’s ears drooped. “Maybe that’s my problem. A song about how magic feels is dumb because everypony knows how it feels.”
“You gotta find a way to make it exciting.” Scootaloo leaned back to let Cup Cake set a mug of cocoa before her. “Thanks, Mrs. Cake!”
“Thank you,” Sweetie Belle said.
“Be careful, girls,” Mrs. Cake said. “It’s hot.”
“We will.” Sweetie blew the steam coming from her mug, then stirred it up to cool it down.
Scootaloo hovered her hoof over the mug and swept it from side to side. As she went, the steam swirled and danced after her foreleg, creating feathery curlicues and spirals. She paused when she saw Sweetie staring at her. “What?”
“How are you doing that?”
“Doing what?” Scootaloo shrugged. “Playing with the steam?”
“Yes.” Sweetie Belle rubbed her eyes. “Yes, that exactly. How are you making designs with steam?”
“Um.” Scootaloo waved her hoof over her mug a couple more times. “Can’t everypony?”
Sweetie stuck her hoof into her own little steam cloud and wiggled it. The steam continued up to the ceiling.
“Huh.” Scootaloo made a halo above her head and grinned. “Maybe steam design is my special talent.”
“I guess it makes sense, since that’s basically a really small, really thin cloud.” Sweetie Belle leaned on the back of her chair. “Maybe your talent is in weather management?”
“That’s kinda boring.” Scootaloo made a butterfly appear out of her mug. It flapped around and dissipated. “Maybe my talent is in extreme weather management. Like Equestria Games weather management. Is weather management an event?”
“Kinda?” Sweetie sipped her cocoa. “I think you paid more attention to those parts than I did.”
Scootaloo took a giant gulp of her cocoa. She licked her lips and blew steam out her mouth. “Whoo! That hit the spot.”
“Yeah, a little bit.” Sweetie pouted at her notepad. “Maybe a song about cocoa will inspire me.”
“You know what needs more songs written about it?” Scootaloo said. “Flying.”
“I have no personal experience with flying,” Sweetie said.
“Neither do I.” Scootaloo flapped her wings. “Directly, anyway. But that doesn’t stop songs about flying from being really awesome.”
“I’ll consider it,” Sweetie said with a small smile. “Now how about we go and you can practice getting that new weather management cutie mark of yours.”
“It isn’t gonna be weather management.” Scootaloo guzzled the rest of her mug. “I swear on my pinions.”
“Please, Scootaloo.” Sweetie set a cloche hat on her head. “You don’t get to choose what talents you’re given.”
“No, maybe not.” Scootaloo pulled her coat on. “But that’s not all a cutie mark’s about, is it?”
Sweetie Belle paused at the door. “I guess not.”
Scootaloo drew up beside her. “What promise did you make to yourself when you got your mark?”
Sweetie bit her boot’s pull-string to tighten it. “Promise?”
“Yeah, you know. When’d you finally say to yourself, ‘Yeah, that’s what I’m gonna do.’”
Sweetie shuffled her hooves. Her brow furrowed. “Well… I guess it was when others started joining in the song.”
New-fallen snow crunched under their feet. They made their way down the street towards Quills and Sofas. “I just saw, like, a light in their eyes. A sparking something that just grabbed me. It was…” Sweetie’s head dipped low. “You’re gonna call it girly.”
“No, I’m not gonna make fun of you. Fillyscout’s honor.” Scootaloo held a hoof against her chest.
“You’re not a Fillyscout.”
“Fine. Pinkie Pie Promise.” Scootaloo crossed her heart, fluttered her wings, and stuck her hoof in her eye. “Just an honest answer to an honest question.”
Sweetie smiled. “The sparkle was so beautiful. It was like for just a moment, everypony’s hearts were all connected, and I was the connection. Well, my song was. But I was the one singing it, and I felt just as connected. I want to connect people through song. I want people to feel that same heartbeat. I want people to feel that sparkle that I felt and saw.” She licked a snowflake that had stuck to her lips. “I want to shine, and I want to help others shine. I guess that’s the promise I made.”
Scootaloo nodded. “That’s why the new song has to be perfect?”
“I wanna capture that moment again.” Sweetie lifted her head high. “I wanna feel that connection again.”
She giggled and waved a hoof. “That’s deep enough for today. What’s next for us?”
“We’ll head to the big sledding hill first,” Scootaloo said. “Rumble told me it’s got a wicked hairpin turn that we might make if I practice a couple times.”
“Sledding?” Sweetie shook her head. “Oh no. No, no, no. We’re gonna crash and it’s gonna completely ruin my hat!”
“You can borrow one of mine.” Scootaloo grinned. “Or is your mane allergic to hats that cost less than a hundred bits?”
“Pfft. This hat didn’t cost that much. Rarity made it herself.” Sweetie prodded her friend in the side. “You don’t want to get a hatter mad.”
“I thought they already were.” Scootaloo ducked under a clump of snow as it zinged at her. “Whoa! Is that how we’re playing?”
“Call it righteous retribution for your heinous personal slight.” Sweetie rolled up another gob of snow. “The honor of my sister has been besmirched.”
“Oh yeah?” Scootaloo chuckled. She jumped behind a snow bank and scooped up a snowball. “I’m gonna besmirch your face!”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Sweetie Belle’s snowball arced over the bank and clocked Scootaloo in the back of the head. “You’re begging for powdered donuts, girl!”
“Alley goop!” Scootaloo threw a snowball far over Sweetie.
“That’s ‘Allez hop!’” Sweetie said, sticking her head above her own protective bank. A snowball smacked her right in the nose. “That does it!”
Scootaloo ran as a dozen snowballs assailed her all at once, gripped in a shaky blue glow. She was backed against a wall with nowhere else to go. She held out her hooves, spread her wings, and braced for impact.
The impact didn’t come.
She opened her eyes and found herself surrounded by a small cloud of snowflakes. She waved her hooves, and they moved in time. Her jaw dropped.
“Scootaloo? Are you okay?” Sweetie Belle ran up, her horn sparking. She rubbed her forehead and groaned. “Feels like my head exploded.”
“Mine too,” Scootaloo said. She made the snowflakes bounce as her grin widened. “But in a good way.”
Sweetie’s mouth hung slack. She looked the snow cloud up and down. “Are you doing that?”
“Eeyup.”
“All by yourself. With just your magic.”
“Oh yes.”
Sweetie Belle frowned as the snow drifted over to her. “You’re gonna dump a whole snow bank on my head, aren’t you?”
“Quick, take your hat off.”
“You’re a monster.”
~***~
Rainbow Dash pushed open the door and nearly walked right into a cloud. Inside Quills and Sofas. Indoors.
Scootaloo bounced on another cloud that floated nearby. “Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash! Look what I can do!”
Davenport walked through the cloud like it wasn’t even there. “Anything you can do to keep my little girl from raising our water bill to ‘national mint’ proportions will be greatly appreciated.” He pulled a plastic cover over one couch before hurrying to do it again with the others.
Rainbow Dash laughed. “Good job, Squirt, but I think you should’ve practiced cloudmaking outside.”
“It’s not just cloudmaking!” Scootaloo bounded down and gripped Rainbow Dash’s hoof. “Come on! Come see!”
Davenport sighed. “At least the pipes won’t freeze. Maybe.”
Rainbow Dash pulled off a purple scarf and laid it on a passing loveseat. “You’ve got some kinda new trick or something?”
“Better!” Scootaloo entered the kitchen. She held up a pitcher of water and turned it upside down. “Check it!’”
Rainbow Dash flinched back from the expected splash, but when it didn’t come, she took a second look. “Is that water… suspended?”
“Heck yeah! And that’s not all!” Scootaloo reached in and pulled out a round drop of water. She set the pitcher down and kicked the drop like a ball. “I can do all sorts of stuff! Bounce it, make it fly, turn it into a cloud—”
She tried to bounce it on her head, but the drop splashed against her nose. She blinked water out of her eyes and chuckled. “Maybe I need a little more practice.”
Rainbow Dash’s mouth twitched. “H—how are you doing this?”
“Just extending the good old magic of the pegasi.” Scootaloo stretched her forelegs behind her head. She reached into the pitcher and pushed the water around like it was a semisolid. “You try it.”
Rainbow Dash looked at her hooves. “I won’t deny the awesome, but—”
“Try it!” Scootaloo’s wings buzzed. “Let’s see what you can do!”
Rainbow Dash stared at the pitcher for a long moment. She shook her head with a smile, dipped her hoof into the water, and splashed around. “Sorry, Squirt. Looks like this is a ‘Scootaloos only’ event and I ain’t no Scootaloo.”
“But…” Scootaloo’s face scrunched up. “But you’re a pegasus, too. You’ve got the same magic.”
“Oh heck no I don’t!” Rainbow Dash ruffled Scootaloo’s damp mane. “Every pony has their own special magic. It’s as unique to you as a voice. You’ve got ponies with a loud voice and ponies with a quiet voice, but they’re never exactly the same.”
“Inspirational speech number three-thousand seventy-five,” Scootaloo said. “Check.”
“Yeah, yeah, but I mean it.” Rainbow Dash shook her tail. “You don’t know anypony else who can do the sonic rainboom, do you?”
“No.”
“And I don’t know anypony else who can… can…” Rainbow Dash brushed back her mane. “Holy cow, what is it you do? You just sort of…”
Scootaloo trailed a snake of water out of the pitcher. It grew to leg’s length before it fell back in. “I bring it to life.”
Rainbow Dash’s wide eyes finally blinked. She laughed softly and shook her head. “Yeah. Yeah, you do.”
Scootaloo shifted her weight between her front legs and her back legs. Her ears perked up. “Hay. Hay, hay, hay.”
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “What’s up?”
“Only I can do this.” Scootaloo brought her hoof up to her chest. “Only I’ve done this. It’s what makes me special.”
“One of the things that—”
“Oh my gosh, it’s my super-special talent!” Scootaloo jumped into the air and hovered. “I’ve found my super-special talent! I’m a water-er-er!” She landed and looked at her blank rump. “And I’m gonna be the best at water-er-er-ing!”
The kitchen grew quiet. The sound of a magic-powered fan blowing away clouds in the showroom reached their ears. Scootaloo held her breath, her eyes never leaving that special spot where a cutie mark was sure to appear.
Nothing happened.
Scootaloo licked her lips and exhaled. “Maybe I need to think up a design in my head.”
“Squirt—” Rainbow Dash lifted a hoof, but stopped short of putting it on her shoulder. “Scootaloo, I don’t think—”
“What?” Scootaloo pulled back with a frown. “What? You don’t think this is my super-special talent? You don’t think this is what I was meant to do? You got a better idea, sister?”
“Well, no,” Rainbow Dash said. “I just thought that maybe…”
“Maybe what?” Scootaloo said. She stomped a hoof on the floor. “Maybe what?”
“Maybe I don’t know.” Rainbow Dash’s eyes went to the water pitcher. “It’s totally awesome what you can do. But I don’t know why it’s not appearing.”
“It should appear!” Scootaloo’s wings shivered at her sides. “It should have appeared already! I’m good at a million different things! I could get a mark for any one of them! Why hasn’t it appeared yet?”
Rainbow Dash took a small step back. “If I knew why, I’d tell you.”
Scootaloo’s face turned purple. “What’s wrong with me?” she shouted.
She ran past Rainbow and bolted up the staircase.
Rainbow Dash sat at the foot of the stairs. She looked up, her wings opening and closing. She met Davenport’s eyes with a silent plea.
“We should probably give her time to cool down,” he said. When Scootaloo’s door slammed, he added, “Yup. Time to cool down.”
Rainbow Dash gave him a single nod.
~***~
Scootaloo buried her face in a pillow. A normal pillow, unlike the soft, cloudy pillows Rainbow Dash used. An earth pony pillow filled with chicken feathers.
Scootaloo chucked it across the room.
She stood up on her bed and flapped her wings. “Just gotta fly… just gotta fly… just gotta fly…”
She jumped, spread her legs out, and creaked the bedsprings upon landing. “I just gotta fly!”
She lay her head on its side and wiped her eyes. “Then everything’ll make sense.”
There was a soft knock at the door. Scootaloo turned toward the wall. “Unless you got a bucket of ice cream, I ain’t interested!”
The door inched open. Roseluck poked her head in. “Just a bowl or two, actually, but does it count?”
Scootaloo covered her head with her wings. “Come in.”
Roseluck walked in, shut the door, and placed a bowl of strawberry ice cream, topped with chocolate syrup and cookie crumbs, on Scootaloo’s nightstand. She sat next to the bed and licked at her own bowlful.
Scootaloo peered through her feathers. “You’re an awfully persuasive person.”
“A finely honed tal—” Roseluck cleared her throat. “Skill.”
Scootaloo took a bite of ice cream. “Nice catch.” She licked syrup off her chin. “Did Rainbow Dash go home?”
“She has to pack.” Roseluck ran a hoof down Scootaloo’s foreleg. “She said she hopes to see you at the train station tomorrow.”
“She will.” Scootaloo set her bowl on the bed and sniffed. “I screwed up so bad, Mom. I just wanted to show Dash what I could do, and then I was so sure I was gonna… and I just…”
“Hay, come here.” Roseluck held her forelegs out. Scootaloo climbed off the bed and into her embrace. “You’re okay. There’s nothing that happened today that won’t be okay later.”
“But it isn’t okay now.” Scootaloo pulled against her mother’s hug. “I should go to Rainbow and—”
“You can do it tomorrow. It’s too cold to go out tonight.” Roseluck sighed. “Besides, it isn’t okay with you, yet.”
“No.” Scootaloo coughed up some phlegm. “But the only thing that’ll make it okay is if—”
“If you got your cutie mark?”
“Yeah. Kinda stupid.”
“It’s not stupid, Honey. It’s something you’ve wanted for a long time. Something you’ve been looking forward to, and—” Roseluck looked at the Wonderbolts poster on the wall. “And if I could just give it to you, I would.”
“But you can’t,” Scootaloo said.
“No.”
“Because it’s something I have to decide for myself.”
“Yes.”
Scootaloo stood up. She walked around the room, looking at the various posters and pictures of cool locations around Equestria that she was for sure going to visit someday. “And it’s got to be a promise. A promise to myself. About who I want to be. Of who I’m going to be.”
Scootaloo stopped at the mirror on the back of her door. She stared at her damp, matted mane, her tired eyes, and her chocolate-stained chin. “And here I’ve just been worried about what I’m gonna do.”
Roseluck sat her ice cream to the side. “So who do you wanna be?”
“I dunno.” Scootaloo tilted her head as she searched her own violet eyes for an answer. “I’ve just been… bouncing from talent to talent and back again. Like, I don’t know, some kind of crazy butterfly jumping between flowers. Grabbing the nectar, finding another flower to see if it has better nectar, going back to the first because the second one wasn’t good enough…”
She lifted a hoof and waved it in a swirly pattern. “And nopony can keep up ’cause they can’t even tell where I’m going, and I barely even know where I am, and it’s all just crazy.
“So maybe that’s all I am,” Scootaloo said. “A crazy butterfly who can’t decide to do anything because everything is awesome. And I wanna do it all. And I can do it all.”
“That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing to me,” Roseluck said.
“Naw.” Scootaloo shook her head. She turned away from her reflection and back to her mom. “But it ain’t enough. It’ll never be enough.”
She walked up to the wall and looked out the window. Ponyville lay buried under a layer of snow that grew as the clouds overhead rolled. “There’s still one thing, Mom. I gotta fly.”
Roseluck’s head tilted down. Her shoulders slumped. “Honey, I know you want to—”
“No. You didn’t hear me. I gotta fly. I have to fly. I need it.” Scootaloo gave Roseluck a pointed glare. “I’m gonna fly. I will fly.”
She squared her hooves and spread her wings. “I’m gonna fly. I don’t care what ponies say.”
Her heart beat faster as she glared out the window. “I don’t care what they think they know about me. I don’t care if my wings are small. I don’t care if I’m the encyclopedia entry for ‘late bloomer.’ I don’t care if I’ve barely gotten off the ground. I don’t care what they think I can’t do!”
A lump appeared in her throat that demanded to be let out. “I’m gonna fly! Do you hear me? I’m going to fly!”
Her legs tingled. She rushed up to the window and threw it open. She propped herself up on her forelegs and leaned out. “Did you hear me that time, Ponyville? I’m gonna fly! I’m gonna fly!”
Her body felt lighter than air. Her mouth spoke almost without her permission. Her heart soared as it raced faster and faster. “I’m gonna fly, Ponyville! My name is Scootaloo, and I will fly!”
The room flashed. Scootaloo didn’t look at her flank, because she already knew what was there. A crazy butterfly, flapping along on a path nopony could follow, bouncing from flower to flower because there was always something better. A crazy butterfly who never stopped bouncing, because she knew that there was one thing still missing.
“I’m gonna fly,” Scootaloo said, “and there’s nothing that can stand in my way.”
~***~
“How long’s it been since I cleaned this thing?”
Davenport brushed various bills and tax forms off his desk in a last-ditch attempt to look professional. He pulled his collar as sweat collected underneath it. “Miss Rich. Or Miss Tiara? I’m happy you decided to patronize Quills and Sofas.”
“Everypony in this dumb town has some sort of monopoly,” Diamond Tiara said. “What’s your deal on fully furnishing?”
Davenport did his best to give a warm smile. It was more like a worn simile. “Does Mr. Filthy Rich want to redecorate? It seems a bit late in the year for—”
“She’s moving in with me,” Silver Spoon said. She chuckled. “Ponyville’s rising star is finally stepping out on her own. With me, of course. Our apartment is gonna need furnishing. Maybe a little stationary to go with it…”
“I happen to have both of those things,” Davenport said. “In bulk.”
“Yeah, yeah, congratulations.” Diamond Tiara jutted out her lower lip and looked at the bare white walls of Davenport’s office. “Just tell me how much this is gonna cost.”
“Depends on the furniture you wanna get.” Davenport shrugged. “I can let you two look over the stuff in the catalogue if you don’t like what you see in the showroom.”
“Oh that would be nice, sir,” Silver Spoon said. “May we see the catalogue?”
“Of course, just—” Davenport dug through the pile of paper on his desk. “Huh. I’ve been looking for that book. Bill, bill…” His hoof touched a love letter from Roseluck and slid it out of view. “Another bill. Ahem.”
He paused a moment. He found a folder of information about flight camps around Ponyville. Unused. His eyes flicked to the picture of Scootaloo on his desk, smiling at the camera with a giant pink cotton candy cloud stuck in her mane. “Sorry, Kid.”
“Beg pardon?” Silver Spoon said.
“I think I left my latest catalogue upstairs,” he replied. “I’ll be right back. Please make yourself comfortable. I think there’s still coffee in the pot.”
Silver Spoon gave him her sweetest smile. “Thank you very much.”
He hurried out the door, leaving the two to plot in private.
“Don’t worry about the price, Diamond,” Silver Spoon said. “I’ll cover the cost…” Her smile turned a shade darker. “While you job-hunt. You can pay me back later.”
Diamond’s face turned red. “You’d be in the same boat as me if your dad had kicked you out when you turned eighteen.”
“Instead of giving me a job? I know.” Silver Spoon shut her eyes and shrugged. “But then you wouldn’t have had your best friend to help you out.”
“You smug…” Diamond Tiara gritted her teeth. “Thanks a million, BFF.”
“A million would be a start…” Silver Spoon leaned over Davenport’s desk and shuffled through the files. “What sort of issues do the common people deal with these days? Huh, water bill isn’t bad nowadays.”
Diamond Tiara snickered. “Remember when Scootalooser almost drowned the audience with her ‘super-special talent’ at the talent show?”
“One of many fantastic fiascos. I remember.” Silver Spoon pulled up a folder with “Flight Camp” typed onto the front. “Like the fiasco that is her life.”
“Oh that’s priceless. Let me see.” Diamond grabbed the folder and shuffled through it. “‘Learn beginning skills of thermal riding, cloudjumping, and gliding.’ The dumb cripple can’t even do the basics.”
Silver Spoon looked at the back of the folder. “You really think she’s a cripple?”
“What other explanation is there?” Diamond snickered at another pamphlet. “This one’s from Scenic Meadows Cloud Ranch. I think somepony has their wires crossed.”
Silver Spoon snatched the folder. “Hay!” Diamond Tiara said. “I was mocking that!”
“Shut up.” Silver Spoon dumped the contents of the folder onto the desk. She picked up a page printed on glistening, enchanted paper. She read over it with a smile. “Isn’t that odd?”
Diamond Tiara adjusted the crown on her head. “What? What is it?”
“Does Davenport strike you as a particularly organized individual?” Silver Spoon asked.
Diamond gave the desk a single glance. “No.”
“At some point this folder became the ‘Scootaloo’ folder.” Silver handed the page to Diamond. “Take a close look.”
Diamond studied the page as Silver Spoon put the papers back in order. “It’s her birth certificate?”
“Look closer.”
“At what?”
“Closer. Think.”
Diamond Tiara squinted at the page. She drew back with a start. “There’re overlapping spells on this thing. Some of these names have been changed. The parents—”
Davenport’s heavy footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs. Diamond Tiara stuck the birth certificate in the folder.
“The question is,” Silver Spoon said, “does he keep the adoption papers in the bathroom or the broom closet?”