3-4
The morning sun beat at Scootaloo’s head painfully, trying to sneak into her eyes despite the way she scrunched her eyes shut. It seemed to poke her nose and tweak it warmly, and pry her eyelids open to blind her through the cracks with bright light. Moaning, she despised the way that her brain was made of pain.
The night before had been weird. She had kept on getting sleepier and sleepier despite the early hour. Her ears had been burning—or so they felt like—since the winds on the high cloud, higher than she had ever been before. When they had gotten down, Caring Gladly—the head of the Ponyville Orphanage—had dragged them both off to the hospital right away the second they had shown up on the orphanage’s front porch. Dash was just fine, but she had gotten a little bit of frostbite on her ears from the thin, cold air six miles up. Ms. Gladly had scolded Dash for a while until the older Pegasus could explain the circumstances. She backed off a little and got a funny look on her face when Dash explained what had happened and showed off the rainbow aura she could call up. The nurses wanted to keep both of them overnight, and so waking up in a hospital bed was pretty expected.
Waking up in a hospital bed with her ears wrapped up as they burned lightly from frostbite was; waking up with the bed vibrating lightly with some kind of magical field generator with Applebloom and Sweetie Belle poking her face and nose to nose with her wasn’t. She totally meant to scream and flail, it was her morning routine. Really. Her friends fell back, toppling to their rumps and over the railings of her bed into the piles of flowers and get well cards on either side. “YAH-wokeupnow!”
“Scootaloo! Yer awake!”
“Scootaloo, oh thank goodness!”
Blinking, Scootaloo looked around confused and dazed from her rude wakeup. She was only in overnight. Where had all the junk come from? “Uh, guys… what are you doing here? I only had frostbite, what’s with all the stuff?”
Ms. Gladly cleared her throat in the corner, gathering all of their attention. The elderly old Pegasus brushed her greying mane out of her face as she got up and stretched out. “Young lady, you had much more than just frostbite.” She shook out each leg, cracking and popping the joints in each. “You were asleep for all of yesterday, and most of today. It’s early afternoon. The doctors explained to me that your exhaustion is why you gathered frostbite, and a bit of altitude sickness.”
Scootaloo gulped nervously. Passed out for a day? How had she gotten magic exhaustion? That was a unicorn thing. “What about Dash? How did I-“
“Rainbow Dash came back the next day and helped us put things together.” Ms. Gladly warmly smiled, brushing back Scootaloo’s mane futilely. “As it turns out, when you use your magic like a unicorn’s, you put yourself in peril of suffering their same ailments. Using your little cloud saddle and all the other tricks you did tired you out too much.”
Applebloom flailed a little as Ms. Gladly picked her up by the scruff of her neck. An old, experienced hoof attacked the filly mercilessly in the belly to make the apple filly squirm helplessly as she was tickled. Setting her down at the foot of the bed, Ms. Gladly continued. “I never expected it to see the condition in you. Normally, it’s some unicorn foal all enthralled with their new toy to realize it’s a muscle just like any other. A good thing I caught it once we were here in the both of you.”
“Both of us?” Scootaloo gasped lightly. Sweetie Belle climbed up on the other side, shimmying over the railing with her legs kicking in the air crazily as she teetered on the rail on the fulcrum of her belly.
“Next room. She tried to run off and do her normal job yesterday. She went and collapsed when she tried to use her new tricks to wrangle some clouds in the middle of her weather patrol. About as cantankerous as you when it comes to sitting still, she’s trying to get out right now.”
Clopping her mouth shut, Scootaloo stopped asking questions. She had accidentally put Rainbow Dash in the hospital? A set of small whines escaped her as she slumped back into her pillow with worry.
“Oh, sush you. I’m a little mad at this Sunbeam, but I don’t think even she knew it was possible to overuse your magic like this. She’s the strangest mare I’ve seen, that one.” Ms. Gladly said and frowned, looking at the door. Turning back, she corrected the pensive look on Scootaloo’s face with two gentle hoof strokes to draw up the corners of the filly’s mouth. “Land’s sakes, you would think I told you that you kicked every one of Fluttershy’s kittens and puppies.”
Nodding, Scootaloo didn’t want to look as Applebloom rolled her eyes and Sweetie Belle gasped in horror while whispering things about meaniepants.
“Oh, I’m already proud of you, Scootaloo. You might be the one who never found a home of her own, but it looks like you’ll be the one to make her own way. Just keep up what you’re doing, a little more carefully.” Ms. Gladly whimsically praised as she tried to brush Scootaloo’s mane again. Frowning as the unruly thing snapped back to its wind-blown state, she harrumphed and shook her head ruefully at the nemesis of her life.
Behind her, Scootaloo’s partners in mayhem fidgeted somewhat nervously as they waited on the foot of the bed with a big box filled with sheafs of paper. Sweetie had retrieved it with her magic after she had safely situated herself on the bed. Ms. Gladly gave them a worried stink-eye and they tried to appear as innocent and angelic as possible for her. The little halos were mostly just taped to the tips of their ears since they would otherwise fall off.
“Oh, you two. I was just about to pokey on off. Since the three of you aren’t going anywhere fast I’m not going to keep an eye on you. You don’t have to put on those silly innocent expressions for me.” Ms. Gladly warmly scolded the ever-wayward group. She turned and trotted for the door, stopping once. “I’ll be just outside making sure that Miss Twilight gives the three of you lessons on how to spot signs of overusing your magic. Have fun planning new adventures to find your cutie marks, and if you have any trouble just shout like you set yourself on fire.”
“That was only once!” Sweetie Belle squeaked indignantly.
“Yes ma’am, Missus Gladly, ma’am.” Applebloom deferred as the old Pegasus scooted out the door. She was all but vibrating along with Sweetie Belle with the need to tell Scootaloo something, and it was only by sheer will alone that they didn’t explode with excitement into girlish unintelligible squeals as soon as the door shut. Applebloom dragged the box across the woolen green sheets up to the hind-hooves of the Pegasus filly. With a slightly mad look of somepony who had been brainstorming a bit too much, she checked on Scootaloo. “Fore we get started, ya didn’t lose anything, did ya?”
Blinking, Scootaloo patted herself down. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t look like I’m missing anything, do I?”
“Great! That means we can get going!” Sweetie shouted too closely to Scootaloo’s face. Her horn glowed brightly, and the big box of papers exploded into a drift of material that swallowed half the bed beneath crude drawings of plans and rambling thoughts. Sweetie Belle grabbed a particular bunch of papers—all torn and crumpled from the way they had been shoved in—and shoved them into Scootaloo’s lap. “We thought of this really neat idea to make a ship!”
“A flying ship!” Applebloom clarified with a shout.
“Invisible and stuff!”
Moaning, Scootaloo steadied her stomach as the excited hopping of her friends sloshed the bed back and forth like a ship at sea. Ugh, why did she get seasick so easily? She forced herself to roll forward so she was sitting fully upright. “Stop!” She croaked and poked her friends in their noses to force them to stop bouncing her crazily. “Before we go any further, why are we doing this?”
“Whaddaya mean? You agreed the other day? Maybe Ah should get a nurse.”
“Ugh, no. I mean, what’s our plan, and why do we want to prove she’s the princess?”
“We want to find out if Celestia is really Sunbeam. Duh.” Sweetie responded, as if things were self-evident.
“And then?”
“Then what, Scootaloo?” Applebloom asked in confusion, sparing a look to Sweetie Belle.
Groaning again, Scootaloo fell back slightly into her massive, fluffy pillow as her strength weakened. Her balance was still funny from the massive balls of bandages on her ears, and her stomach and back were weak and trembling; not to even mention the way her head hurt like she had been the one to plow into an ice cloud at sonic rainboom speeds. Rubbing just in front of her ears with her fore-hooves, she tried again. “Why do we even care if the princess is teaching us? What would we do with knowing that even if we did prove it?”
“We know? Ya gotta stop overthinking things, Scoots.” Applebloom said in confusion.
“We’re not thinking things out enough, that’s what’s been tripping us up according to Dash. We seriously have no plans if we prove this?” Scootaloo complained irritatedly.
“Ah didn’t know Ah needed a plan just to find out if somepony is lying to me.”
“If you’re right, then just rushing into this is going to be worse than our normal stuff. We all know how that goes. So we find out, then what? We keep it to ourselves? Confront her?” Scootaloo abrasively pointed out as she started sorting through the papers that had her friends ‘plans’. The afternoon sun was in just the right spot to shine in a beam of light onto the papers in a golden haze.
Sweetie Belle piped up, looking a little sad that Scootaloo was turning her back on the plan. “So she’ll make up with Twilight. So she’ll teach us right with everything she knows instead of pretending to be a Pegasus. So we can remind her that everypony trusted her to run everything, instead of making her sister do her job.”
“Alright.” Scootaloo said, holding up a bunch of papers that looked important.
“That’s it, alright?” Sweetie asked, disbelieving.
Nodding, Scootaloo clarified. “Well, yeah. I didn’t need a deep reason. I was just saying we needed an actual reason.” As she leafed through the designs, she winced at the ideas presented. Sweetie’s scribbles were kind of expected, since she had a terrible head for mechanical stuff, but Applebloom’s ideas were just weird. Her blueprints weren’t very blue; or really prints for that matter. Heck, half the design ideas needed the ground to stay up. “What is this, a ship, a balloon, or a house?”
Applebloom grumpily passed along a few papers Scootaloo had missed in her search, disliking the filly’s tone. “Kinda both; kinda neither.”
Deciding that the fire between her ears had nothing to do with frostbite, Scootaloo let herself fall forwards in an irritated slump. There wasn’t any coherent vision in her friend’s ideas, and the only thing she figured she could salvage out of their brainstorming session was the vague boat-like shape Applebloom had. “This is all wrong, guys. It’ll never fly.”
“Sayin that Ah don’t know how to build?”
“You know how to build buildings. And clubhouses. This has to fly and move. And stuff.” Scootaloo counter-argued in exasperation.
“Hey! I helped!”
Wincing, Scootaloo looked at Sweetie’s handiwork. A ‘de-transmorgifier’ ray blasted from some kind of cardboard box-looking ship thing, zapping Sunbeam into Celestia and a pile of changelings. “What is this, I don’t even-“
“We can zap her someplace and make her face cutie-justice!” The unicorn filly excitedly said, holding a hoof high in victories imagined and yet to come.
“We’re about to try to unmask Princess Celestia by trying to invent a whole new kind of invisible flying ship, and this is the best we’re got?” Scootaloo ranted from where she laid, waving the offending paper like she was some kind of ranting, lazy, tired madpony. Which she probably was by that point. They were doomed. It was all going to catch fire, fall over, sink into Froggy Bottom Bog, then get covered in tree sap, and they still wouldn’t have their cutie marks. And gravity would laugh at them. Again.
Sighing, Applebloom joined Scootaloo in laying down flat as everything got to her, too. “Well, she’s being mean and withholding valuable… uh, insights! Yeah! What else are we supposed to do?” Applebloom helpfully pointed out.
“Hey, I’m supposed to be the one who knows funny words!” Sweetie grumpily complained. “Besides, she’s being a big pouty-pants who left her sister alone with those mean nobles!” She heinously stated as a crackle of thunder accompanied her from outside. Ditzy was playing with rain clouds again. “Wait, does she even wear pants?”
“Focus, guys! This is the biggest thing we’ve ever done! We have to figure out exactly what we’re doing or we’ll likely explode twice for messing with things nopony was meant to know! And we-hide the stuff!” Scootaloo warned as the shadow of three mares appeared in the window of the door. A mad scramble hurriedly stuffed most of the incriminating evidence back in the box messily while the rest found its way under Scootaloo’s pillow as the filly threw herself back and pretended to be sicker than she was for an audience.
The door opened, admitting Dash with her wings both wrapped in slings, Sunbeam scuttling ahead of a visibly angry Twilight, and Ms. Gladly looking bemused as she trailed the group. Twilight had a particularly furious look upon her face that intimidated the trio even though the majority of its ire was being spent upon the back of Sunbeam’s head. “Ms. Sunbeam has several long and heartfelt apologies she has to make to the three of you, doesn’t she?”
Clearing her throat several times unnecessarily, she stalled for time to find a better way of stating her position. Twilight wouldn’t have any of it, and poked her in the ribs to make her start. “I would like to apologize to you, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. I came to Ponyville at the Princess’s request, expecting to coast through my training for the two of you based on my past experiences instead of going into my evaluations with a clear head. I ignored all the signs that the three of us were all in over our heads and took improper caution in my training. I withheld information particularly important to you, Sweetie Belle, and I’m very, very sorry.” Sunbeam averted her eyes to the floor, feeling rather ashamed of herself and her avoidant behavior, catching sight of something odd under the bed.
Twilight looked mad still, though not as angry as the worst the trio had seen from her. The young alicorn had already spent most of her yelling earlier elsewhere in the hospital and had little else to say. With Sunbeam being forced to correct the worst of her oversights under the princess’s gaze, what else could she say? She had already apologized for chasing Sunbeam to the hospital to make her apologize. Oh, right. “Scootaloo, Ms. Gladly reminded me to teach you several tricks to help you manage your magic, and I’d love to set up a time for training with you and Rainbow Dash.”
“Twi…” Dash reminded carefully, hoping that Twilight would lighten up.
“Dash, magic exhaustion is potentially fatal! Especially to the unprepared!”
“And she didn’t know, dearie. Seems that little Scootaloo was the first who figured out how to make Pegasus magic act like unicorn mana.” Ms. Gladly reminded Twilight.
“She should have”
“I didn’t. I should have, but I didn’t experiment. I was glad to be able to dampen student surges and fly, I didn’t try much beyond that.”
Twilight frowned at the half-hearted apology but said nothing more rather than trust herself to not say something stupid or hurtful. She looked to Dash, who had bent down to pick up the paper that had fallen. She glanced over Dash’s shoulder; a squiggle gummed up her lips. Dash snickered at the absurd little vignette, passing it back to the trio. “Hey, Sweetie, I’m pretty sure that putting Princess Celestia and a bunch of changelings together isn’t going to get you Ms. Sunbeam.”
Sweetie Belle’s nervous laughs with the other crusaders did a lot to hide Sunbeam’s own fake laughs as she pretended to find the picture funny.