//------------------------------// // State of Love and Trust // Story: Scootaloo & The Cabinet of Seers // by HMXTaylorLee //------------------------------// Scootaloo had to keep reminding herself to slow her pace while eating her brunch. But when the food on offer was as delicious as Spike's chocolate chip pancakes and scrambled eggs, drowning in a decadent maple syrup and melted apple butter sauce, it was a trying task indeed. She watched Twilight use her magic to neatly cut perfectly proportioned pieces and then levitate it towards her mouth, all without spilling a single drop of the syrup, and Scootaloo felt all the more self-conscious of her comparably ravenous style. She could feel some of the syrup that had evidently escaped to her chin begin to cool and solidify, and flashbacks of some of her more tree sap laden crusades an through her mind. Scootaloo slowly reached past the sweating glass of milk to her napkin, taking care not to draw attention to the fact that she was a total slob in front of a princess. "Haha, wow!" Spike chuckled as Scootaloo stopped moving completely, like a foal caught with it's hoof in the cookie jar. "You really do love chocolate chip pancakes!" Twilight giggled at the petrified Scootaloo from across the table, gesturing to her own chin with a hoof. Scootaloo smiled in return, relieved that the princess simply thought her barbaric eating habits amusing, and resumed her motion to grab the napkin and wipe off her face. "Yeah, I guess I do," Scootaloo admitted as she wiped her chin with the napkin, discovering that her hooves were sticky as well despite her use of utensils. "Of course, it's hard to stop myself when the food is this good! I haven't had a breakfast like this in ages, and these-" she gestured to the pancakes loaded with a myriad of melted chocolate chips. "These are awesome! Nice job, Spike!" "Woo-hoo!" Spike raised his fist in the air in excitement, and then held it aloft towards Scootaloo. "Fist... er, hoof bump for good food!" Scootaloo laughed and shook her head. "Sticky hooves," she gestured to the napkin stuck on her hoof. "Not like it's that hard to make something taste good when you load it with chocolate chips," Twilight joked, earning an annoyed glare from Spike. "I hope the sugar crash isn't too much from these. We've still got a lot of work to do, Scootaloo, even after that great start." "You and your sugar crashes, Twi! I eat sweets all the time, and it never happens to me!" Spike hopped down from the chair, lifting his empty plate from the table to carry it to the sink. Underneath where the plate just rested, Scootaloo noticed, was a Power Ponies comic. "Power Ponies? I love the Power Ponies!" Scootaloo gushed, sitting up to examine which issue it was from the cover, to see if she had read it yet. "Another fan? Here," Twilight remarked as she used her magic to lift the comic book towards Scootaloo. "Spike has almost every one of them, and multiples of a bunch of them. They're the same, but with a different cover!" "That's comic books for you," Scootaloo replied from behind the glowing pink issue. "There was a pony in the bed next to mine who used to lend me them all of the time." The comic book suddenly lifted itself higher, revealing behind it Princess Twilight, sitting across the table wearing a raised eyebrow. "Bed?" she asked, setting the comic back at Spike's place at the table. Scootaloo paused for a moment, and realized her slip of the tongue. "Did I say bed? I meant to say uhh... desk! Yeah, a desk like, at school. I am still sort of tired, guess I was thinking about a bed, huh?" she laughed nervously. Twilight looked over her carefully for a second and then offered an exasperated sigh. "See, Spike?" She turned to look at the dragon who was drying his claws with a towel. "She's already crashing!" "Crashing?" Spike clambered back into his seat. "She hasn't even had that supposed 'sugar rush' yet!" "What do you mean by 'supposed'..." As she drank a sizable swig of her ice-cold milk, Scootaloo thought to herself that because of the cookies she ate before coming over, she already would have had said sugar rush. As Twilight and Spike continued to stubbornly argue, she decided to keep that particular tidbit a secret. Scootaloo had inadvertently hinted about her normal breakfast routine, or lack thereof, already, and she didn't want Twilight to press the issue. Seeing how Twilight was about to present a grand lecture to Spike about the hazards of consuming sweets, Scootaloo thought it best that she steered clear of that also. "...Okay then, but I'm a dragon!" Spike said. "I don't think there's proof that sugar affects us the same way it affects ponies!" "Proof?" Twilight asked, rapping her hoof on the Power Ponies comic in front of Spike. "After having nothing but your cookies for dinner last night, I found you snoring face down in this not one minute after Cheerilee left!" Both Spike and Twilight immediately stopped their squabble and turned to observe Scootaloo coughing violently, the glass of milk in her hoof falling to the kitchen floor, before it was swiftly caught by Twilight's nigh-reflexive levitation magic. "You alright, Scoots?" Spike asked as he wiped up some of the milk that had sprayed onto the tabletop with one of his spare napkins. Scootaloo pushed away Spike's claw, determined to clean up the mess she made on her own. "Here, let -" she coughed again, covering her mouth this time. "Ahem... let me. Sorry about that, the milk must have gone down the wrong pipe..." The embarrassed filly wiped up the errant drops of liquid from the wooden table, and as soon as she mopped up the last one, Spike offered to take the mildly damp towel from her hoof. "I'll take that," Spike insisted. "Need to take the garbage out anyways," he added as soon as Scootaloo was just about refuse the dragon waiting on her. "Oh... thanks," she mumbled as she surrendered the napkin into Spike's waiting claw. Spike leaned close to Scootaloo's folded ears and whispered "No, thank you! We'd still be arguing if you hadn't broken it up!" Scootaloo quickly turned to face Spike, and he answered her gaze with a sly grin. The pegasus returned the smile, and, evidently satisfied, Spike departed from the room. She laughed softly, returning to finish what little was left of her meal. And then, across the table, she saw Twilight staring at her. Scootaloo's eyes quickly darted down to look at her mushy chocolate pancake goop. After a few seconds, she slowly raised her head to peek at Twilight - only to see the alicorn's dark purple eyes fixed upon her. Scootaloo began to panic. "I'm uh... I'm really sorry about the milk, Your Highness. I-I know it's exp-" "I didn't tell her anything." "Huh?" "Cheerilee. I didn't tell her anything." Scootaloo's gaze had lowered once again. She had hoped that she could have passed off the mishap with her drink as just that - a mishap. Twilight, however, seemed to see right through it. "I um... I didn't think that..." Scootaloo muttered meekly, poking at her food with her fork. "I told you I wasn't going to say anything to her," Twilight continued, once again succinctly puncturing Scootaloo's falsehood. "And even when she asked, I didn't say a word." "She asked?" Scootaloo said, abandoning the pretense of concealing her worry. Twilight nodded, her horn glowing as it lifted her empty plate towards the sink. "Yes, she did." "And you didn't say anything to her?" "No, Scootaloo, I didn't say anything to her." Scootaloo's eyes narrowed as the young pegasus squinted at the princess, analyzing her. Twilight's eyes didn't shift, and her hooves were firmly planted on the tabletop. Scootaloo was both relieved and annoyed at the portrayal of honesty in front of her. Either Twilight was being completely truthful, or she was lying and Scootaloo couldn't tell. Though Scootaloo wanted so much to believe her, there was this tiny, irrevocable part of her that nagged at her. "What are you thinking about?" "What?" Scootaloo shook her head fiercely. "You seem so distracted this morning," Twilight explained. "Back in the library, and now this." The handle to the water faucet to Scootaloo's left squeaked ever so slightly as it turned, and water began spilling out into the sink. "What's going on?" "Nothing!" Scootaloo expelled quickly. "I'm just tired, that's all." Twilight squinted back at Scootaloo in a way that the filly recognized. It was the same kind of look that Scootaloo had just used to analyze the princess' answer for deception. Of course, Scootaloo had much more than just a month long lack of sleep that occupied her thoughts, but it was still true. She hoped that it would be true enough to pass Twilight's inspection. The alicorn exhaled slowly, and the water stopped flowing from the sink. "You can trust me, Scootaloo. I wouldn't lie to you." "Why not?" Scootaloo blurted. "I don't... I don't understand," Twilight said with confusion. "Why not what?" "Why wouldn't you lie to me?" Scootaloo asked bluntly. "That doesn't make sense. Why would I lie to you?" "To make me feel better," Scootaloo answered. "To not hurt my feelings." She could feel her eyes starting to water, and she forcefully stuffed the remainder of her chocolate pancake glop into her mouth as if to try and dam it. "Pretty obvious, I think." The princess looked dejected, almost hurt, and Scootaloo couldn't help but feel a little remorseful for how brazenly she had put it, as if she was insulting Twilight's intelligence. For all the conceptions (and misconceptions) Scootaloo had towards the alicorn since she had moved to Ponyville and subsequently joining Equestrian royalty, intelligence was one thing that she had never doubted concerning Twilight. "I didn't - I didn't mean anything by that. I'm sorry, Princess Twilight," Scootaloo said shakily to apologize. Twilight's eyes closed, and she kept them closed for a moment while she took a deep breath. "...Just Twilight, Scootaloo," she spoke softly and with a profound calmness. "Just Twilight." Scootaloo cocked her head to the right worriedly. What was running through that busy mind of hers? Scootaloo flashed back to the same thoughts of various punishment that Twilight could enforce when Scootaloo was first visiting the library - banishment, torture, other such horrendous things. Twilight probably attributed Scootaloo's initial outburst as a result of her anger, but such rudeness while being a guest at a wonderfully prepared breakfast, on top of chewing up the princess' weekend with help on a trifling school project? The only word that came to mind was "inexcusable." "Look, Twilight, please just - just forget I said anything! I didn't mean-" Scootaloo plead from across the table, sliding her plate out of the way, pushing her hooves together as if to beg. "It's alright, Scootaloo," she said as her eyes opened once more, gazing intently at the filly in front of her. Scootaloo removed her hooves from the surface of the wooden table, where they hung flaccid at her sides. She didn't know what to say or do next. "I don't know where you got the idea that I would do that to you, and I'm sorry that you feel that way," Twilight whispered. "But I want to assure you that I would never betray your trust like that." "...But why?" Scootaloo looked back at her wistfully. "It'd be so easy for you to simply tell me what you think I want to hear, to just lie to my face." The plate in front of Scootaloo levitated in a magenta colored aura, floating across the kitchen before slowly descending into the sink with a quiet plop. Her gaze settled upon the sink to her left, and she held it there. "And what exactly was it that you wanted to hear?" Twilight asked softly. Scootaloo's muzzle burned as she felt a tear forming in her eye once more. Her eyes moved slowly from the sink back to the purple alicorn. "I don't know," she answered throatily. "I just don't know." Much to Scootaloo's surprise, Twilight stood up, the chair scraping the floor as it was pushed away from the table. Her hooves prodded across the floor quietly, following alongside the edge of the table, and Scootaloo watched with fear as Twilight stopped in front of her. "I promised you that I wouldn't say anything to Cheerilee about what you told me," Twilight said, resting her hoof on the back of Scootaloo's chair. "And I didn't." Scootaloo didn't say a word. "One of the things I've learned since being here is that trust doesn't come easily, and it's very, very difficult to earn again once you lose it. For that reason, I do my absolute best to be as honest as possible - to everypony. So when I tell you that I promise not to lie or be dishonest to placate you, I would hope that you'd believe it." Scootaloo looked up at Twilight, her lower lip quivering. "What does... what does placate mean?" Twilight eked the faintest hint of a smile. "In this case, it means I won't tell you what I think you want to hear." The pegasus' sat in the chair, her thoughts seemingly ricocheting as they bounced around her skull. That lingering doubt wanted so much to spread, to prove that Twilight was just like every other adult pony that wanted to "help". Yet, she couldn't find a single reason why Twilight would lie to her, and found no evidence to prove that she had. Even after lashing out at her, Twilight remained steadfast in her unnaturally altruistic attempt to help Scootaloo. It didn't make any sense! "How do I know you're telling the truth?" Scootaloo asked, her voice devoid of the cynicism from before, replaced by a genuine desperation to learn. "You'll need what every new friendship needs before it can be allowed to fully grow. Faith, Scootaloo. You'll just have to trust me," Twilight said, bringing her hoof down from the back of the chair to the kitchen floor. "Faith..." Scootaloo mouthed silently. "Ask Applejack what it took for me to trust her, to recognize her as the Element of Honesty," Twilight added with a smile. "Because believe you me, I know it can be hard to do." Scootaloo simply nodded. "Now then," Twilight cleared her throat, her wings flaring seemingly involuntarily for a moment before settling along her sides. "I promised that I would help you with your schoolwork, and I intend to do just that. We've already got a great outline of several interesting points down, so what do you say we finish the rest of it and start putting the project together?" Scootaloo rotated in her seat, her legs coiling up as she prepared to bounce to the floor. "That sounds like a great idea," she said enthusiastically, glad that the frankly uncomfortable conversation was over and done with. However, she found herself halted by the sudden appearance of a purple, feathery barrier next to the chair. Twilight's wing fell down to her side again after Scootaloo had ceased moving. "...After you finish your milk," Twilight motioned towards the glass with her head.