6.Daydreaming
“Go into the East. Go and seek out the Great Sage of the Wind and learn.” They had said. So, Scootdar the Barbarian and her mentor Rainan of Haymeria journeyed east. They crossed magickless desert and Wide Ocean, they stalked through forests dark, climbed mountain ranges higher than the skies, treaded lightly through great metropolises of the dead and damned never before seen by mortal eyes. They were warriors; strong, unbeaten!
When bandits challenged them, they battled! They won!
When they had to face terrible foes, they triumphed!
When the end of the world called, they canceled the apocalypse!
They were the awesomest, the bestest, and no-pony could beat them! Quests had fallen before them, others had been forced to join them on their journey of world salvation, fought and bled with them to end injustice! They had marched at the head of a big band of adventurers, fighting evil wherever it might have been found until they had all at last broken away from each other. They had finally discovered it. The Great Armory of the Wind, hidden on the dark side of the world lay before the pair, the last two and the first two. And with their discovery, they found their greatest foe yet, the terrible Sun Dragon!
Scales like white gold, spikes burning with a thousand colors of evil magic that couldn’t ever be described without driving the speaker mad, wings wide enough to blot out ten thousand stars, teeth like most terrible steel stalag-the pointy things that dropped from the ceilings of caves. The great and terrible beast curled six times over around the base of the mountain on the black plain, spilling smoke from an eternally burning fire within its breast. It reeked, and it waited.
Rainan tapped her student on the shoulder, then yanked her down when the terrible beast slowly turned its head toward the slight sound and half-glimpsed movement. Scootdar found herself huddled beneath the laying form of her mentor, chewing on the rough blue fur of the mare’s fore-leg as she hushed her and stilled her breath. “Use the smallest whisper. It knows something hunts it. This beast won’t fall to a mere stout sword.” She whispered urgently to Scootdar, a whisper of some-pony defeated before they could even begin.
“You’d use your magic!?” Scootdar squeaked loudly. With no further encouragement, she silenced herself, shuffling down harder into the dirt as she bit upon her own leg to muffle her voice. “You swore you would never use your magic until we learned from the mage! It will end you!” She exclaimed through the mud-stained fur of her leg.
They had learned during their adventure that attempting to use magic again without the proper training would be the end of her mentor. The strain would cause her to explode into a rainbow that would circle the world six times before fading away, leaving it a darker and dorkier place. No, there had to be a better way than to be left alone!
Rainan frowned at her student, then clonked her on the head to silence her. “I shall if I must. If I must, it has been the coolest thing ever to train you, and I say to you: Don’t grieve.” Rainan reassured her, slowly bowing her head with the fears and hopes she had for her student until they touched brow to brow. She touched her nose to Scootdar’s, whispering a thousand prayers for her before beginning.
Their armor was easy to lose, designed to come off quickly so that they could fight with the full motion available to them. Rainan’s breastplate was heavy and squeezed her like a snake, all her speed would be needed to come. Her helmet was dim and echoing, she would need every cue imaginable to see the look of terror in her target’s eyes before the end. Her wing guards, her bladed friends, so too would they be left on the ground, for they slowed every beat of her wings. Her sword, her great silvery companion, it too was laid aside, for her magic was not one of weapons, but of her own strength; it would go to her student, laying in the dark gravel beside Scootdar’s axe.
Not long now; soon she would know if they was any hope left. “Be ready. I’m taking another look.” She hopped on Scootdar’s head before the young warrior could protest, looking over their great rock, peering urgently at the mountain. Just for a second, and no more. She needed no more, she had her fill of sights enough to last ten thousand lifetimes.
“What, what did you see?” Scootdar asked in hushed whispers, tremblors of fear gripping her at the scared look on Rainan’s face.
In a whirl of movement, Rainan laid beside her against the rock, shivering at her fate. “It’s huge. Bigger than the great wall!” Rainan looked down to her student. “This shall be goodbye, friend. Now I must—BWUAK!”
“Bwuak?” Scootdar looked up. And then Rainan was a rainbow chicken.
The ground shook in a terrible earthquake, the ground splitting like a bad sidewalk as the great dragon rose from its trick. It laughed like a bully, rising over the plains in time with its big voice, uncoiling to loom. “Young girl, how could you two hope to surprise me?” The great Sun Dragon rose above her with a smile of great big teeth and eyes like some creepy movie villain.
“I am Scootdar! Barbarian of the West! I’ve come to-“
The Sun Dragon came closer. It lowered its head and poked the filly in the nose with a claw. “No, you’re Scootaloo, foal of Ponyvile. Worthless, ordinary, unfit to study from the Wind Sage.” Like the dragon said, Scootdar shrank down, her armor going away in puffs of smoke. Scootaloo’s helm dropped to her side with a little hollow clonk of noise as it became her scooter helmet by her hooves.
She was weak. But she wouldn’t stop, whether she was Scootaloo or Scootdar! So what if her axe had become a rubber squeaky mallet? She would take out her great and terrible angry fluffiness on the Sun Dragon until she gave way! “Never, I’ll never stop dreaming!” Scootaloo attacked with her battle cry, wildly flailing her mallet with her fore-hooves.
“You already have.” The Sun Dragon said. The plains-place was gone, leaving them in—nothing, she guessed. “Will you wake up already? You’ve been drooling on the blueprints, and Berry is getting irritated.” Mallet swung again, hitting the Sun Dragon on the nose. “Seriously, stop it, my nose is bruising.”
“I’ll never stop dreaming! Have at you!”
“Scootaloo, yer having another one of yer darn daydreams again! Will ya stop! OW! Mah nose, darnit!”
“Gah! Not the face again! Scootaloo, stop swinging around that squeaky hammer!” And then the Sun Dragon was Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, both shaking her her shoulders like crazy. Or maybe like a stuck gumball machine.
Where was she? Oh, in the clubhouse, looking over the blue printy-thingies Berry had them make before assembling the first sled that was supposed to show how everything went together. She didn’t know why he bothered, they had never used them for documenting stuff before, and all the symbols didn’t make any sense to her. She didn’t even know why the stupid thing had tried to kill her. Was killing her. Well, not ‘kill her to death by launching her into space,’ but ‘kill her by boring her to death by looking at funny white lines on blue paper’ kind of killing her. The stupid test cart didn’t work but it was a stupid idea. That simple.
Just to annoy her further, an air horn blew just behind her, scaring her halfway to Canterlot. “Wrong attitude, Scootaloo! Things don’t work for a reason!” Berry yelled, mostly due to the giant earmuffs he had on.
Head met desk repeatedly, and desk respectfully wished Scootaloo would stop knocking. She had been thinking out loud again. It was so stupid, and she was sick of even bothering to try. They’d never be good enough to handle Sunbeam, she’d just be a stupid little filly whose best moment ever was getting carried by a princess who didn’t even bother revealing herself. Stupid, stupid, STUPID!
“You’re not stupid, Scootaloo. A little crazy, sure. Talking to yourself usually isn’t a good sign, even if it can be useful when trying to figure something out.” Berry’s earmuffs found themselves getting bounced off a slapping tail as he kicked his head back and threw them off. He was hoofy like that, big showoff. But after his earmuffs caught around a pole like a set of horseshoes, he was at her side to rub his fuzzy fore-leg against her neck comfortingly. “Don’t worry. It’s just not working because we screwed up something simple. I know you want to fly, and you WILL. As soon as we figure out what went wrong and how to make it not go ‘blooie’. Every engineer has problems like this, that’s why we make blueprints to see what we did wrong.”
Papers blew everywhere as Scootaloo hopped out from under Berry’s leg with an angry shove and buzzed her wings, tired of his help. “I don’t know why! It’s stupid, that’s why! It wasn’t supposed to work like that, they’re just little ones! It’s stupid, I’m stupid, and we’re all stupid!” She ranted, kicking a half of a broken ring towards its mating piece as her wings buzzed even harder.
A scream of frustration was the only thing left she could say as she buzzed her wings even harder and floated off the table in a whipping whirlwind of loose objects. She wasn’t interested in any more comforting, her swiping hooves made sure that every pony got that message as she dropped to the floor and stormed out through the curtain acting as a temporary door. Prints slowly drifted down from the ceiling where they had been plastered to by the force of her buzzing, making floppy noises as they drifted back and forth from their spineless form to scatter everywhere.
“Man, Ah don’t know what’s been eating her lately.” Applebloom grumbled, her rough scoops scraping pieces of paper from everywhere as she fumed over her friend’s funkiness.
“I do, damnit.”
“Hey! Language!” Sweetie squeaked angrily, a memory of her sister washing her mouth out fresh on the mind.
Face met hoof. Face wasn’t particularly interested in hoof’s door to door sales pitch. Berry, meanwhile, grumbled to himself as words failed him. He had a good idea of what was the matter; a nasty case of post-traumatic stress that had likely left Scootaloo awake all night as she freaked out over nearly turning to jelly. Joyful, Luna was going to kill him, but Sunbeam would do it slowly. “Look, she’s freaked out because she just realized she got close to dying. I should have caught on yesterday and immediately got some help, but Sunbeam was her normal self and accidentally distracted me. Just try and get things in order. I need to talk to her, okay?” He sternly looked at them, waiting until they nodded with understanding. Maybe, hard to tell with foals. Sometimes they got it, sometimes they’d only get it years later. With a swift nod of his own, he started marching off for the doorway.
He wouldn’t make it.
The ring Scootaloo had kicked back together began to quake and rattle on the table, springing back to life as the pathways of magic were restored. With a banshee roar of air whistling through the cracks in its form and the rattles of metal on wood, it gave plenty of warning as it began quivering and spinning around; enough warning to get every-pony to duck as it rose into the air. But, flash-welded metal just as quickly broke under the searing current of unstable magic, frightening them all as metal burned and then shattered as centrifugal force won out over half-molten metal. Shards viscously bounced off the walls, sticking in some as the ring shattered again twice over and dropped four partial chunks to the table to smolder.
Each popped in turn, startled out of their minds by the almighty smash and crash of the blast, little hearts pounding like the hooves in the running of the leaves just a little while before.
Oh, wait. Duh, stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Of course it was like an electrical current! That was his missing element, even if it didn’t explain the anomalously high thrust! “That’s it! Sweetie Bloom, Applebelle, we’ve got our control method! Try to get the bits swept up without hurting yourselves on shards, I’ll go stop Scootaloo from turning into a gothic caricature of herself, then I’ll show you!” He shouted over his shoulder, he didn’t even have time to properly point like a silly bugger. Since the floor was made of sharp and pointy bits, he hopped, skipped and galloped on the furniture after Scootaloo, tucking and rolling through the curtain and snagging a post in the safety rail to swing around and land on the deck outside.
“Hey, you got our names wrong!” Sweetie called weakly after him as she brushed little bits of metal out of her mane. Rarity was going to spazz out, then brush her into string when she saw all the little burned spots in it.
“Yeah, ah think he got that.” Applebloom said as she pulled the little broom and dust pan out from under the drafting table setup. “Think he’s a bit too shook up himself to pay attention.”
Outside, Berry skidded against a curve in the railing, bounding off of non-skid mat strips as he ran in a head-long rush down to the first level of the tree-borne building after Scootaloo. Multiple plans were meticulously pulled apart like little building block sets in his head as he analyzed them for the good bits to assemble into a crazy franken-plan of mad social science! Wait, there was supposed to be a lightning strike and all capital letters somewhere in there.
His thoughts found themselves jostled as he shook his head out to refocus on the task at hoof. With reckless abandon he redoubled his speed, glad once more for the unnatural stamina of his metal legs as he finally caught sight of her glumly laying at the edge of a pier behind the main assembly room. It wasn’t right, seeing her like that; a moping bundle of sadness at the edge of the clubhouse shipyard.
Clubyard? Darn kids, getting his terminology all mixed up. “Scootaloo, wait!”
Looking back, she noticed him and sighed. “Why? I’m not cool enough, or smart enough, or brave enough.” She whispered, a pathetic shred of her normal bravado reducing her words to dust in the wind to most ponies. Most ponies didn’t have a head partially built for echolocation.
“The heck brought this on? I’m not mad at you. I did tell you that engineering was nine parts ‘work stupid thing’ and one part ‘why am I stupid!’ as you figure it out.” Berry countered solemnly as he broke stride and slowed to a stalk. Scootaloo’s chin bumped and bounced against the side of the pier as he slowly got closer, a sign that she was busily trying to gaze at her navel. Right, hug her.
“No reason to be mad, and I don’t want you to think that I am.” He reassured her, glomping her with fatherly love and extensive experience with Pie children. Even the most stoic of mopes couldn’t handle the raw cuddles of the fishy-tail, let alone the dreaded tongue to the ear-tip. It was a dangerous power, and he would abuse it with all the irresponsibility that he could! After she yanked her head away, he squeezed into the space between his breastbone and the side of her muzzle with his chin and whispered to her. “Look, what you’re feeling is normal for some pony who just escaped death. Or for a novice trying to read schematics. Happens to the best of us. You’re just exactly what you need to be.” And there was his patented mane-ruffle, perfectly calibrated for maximum annoyance and getting ponies to pay attention to at least avoid the hooves.
With flailing fore-legs like pool noodles, Scootaloo fended him off amidst squaks and grunts of displeasure. When his tail-tip joined the tickles in an attack on her chest fluff, she stomped and sat on it just to be sure. “Stoppit! I’m not freaking out about nearly splatting! Happens all the time!” She shouted in annoyance with a practiced volume that made him wonder if Dash tickled her often. Then the other side of his tailfin reached up between her legs and ruined the moment with a clammy tickle to the nose. “Gah!” She hugged it tight and immediately regretted it as the rest of the tail spun her around, coiling up like a big fuzzy blue snake around her. A final huff escaped. “I’m not a kid you know. I’m just not good enough. Don’t deserve it.”
“You are too worth it.” Berry immaturely countered. “You’re not a teen yet, thank Cel-“ Okay, the sudden flinch was interesting. So, Celestia was a part of her issues for some reason. Funny, she hadn’t—oh. Oh dear. The flight, the love, the seeing a worthy opponent. Well, she had that effect on ponies. “Okay then, thank Luna. At least I now know what’s wrong with you for realsies now.” Oh, Pinkie, you were so good for supplying fun irrelevancies to indignate and perk up ponies to pay attention to the important words. Berry’s legs squeezed tighter to either side of Scootaloo, lovingly cuddling and rubbing her as he tried to describe her feelings. “So, you’re feeling intense feelings of unworthiness, itty-bitty-ness, a need for love and approval, and a strange fuzzy feeling, especially right where the beaty-pumpy thing in your chest is supposed to go?”
Huff. Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “You going anywhere with this?”
“Yeah, stop worrying over it. Plenty of ponies went through what you’re feeling before, and they mostly turned out alright.” He explained, holding her closer for warmth when a cold wind rustled through the branches of the orchard. Slight squirms of tightness from Scootaloo as she struggled in his grasp were also nice, especially when she pawed the air like Rarity trying to be spooky. “I can think of four other ponies right off the top of my head who are still around who went through it, about half of them in town right now. Three turned out pretty alright. Dunno about the fourth, lost track of her.“ Careful word placement strung Scootaloo along as he whispered sweet secrets into her ears and smirked behind her mane.
“Four ponies? What were they going through?”
“Let’s see, there was Sunset Shimmer, me, some pony up north named Cadenza—it’s a pretty silly name—and a last one. Probably heard of her, goes by Twilight Sparkle? It’s called ‘Celestia Adoption Syndrome.’ It’s pretty awful, drives you crazy.” He mentioned, feeling Scootaloo stiffen up and quiver as she realized what he was leading up to. His huggable was going to need softening, just a little. Inflating the ego worked wonders, usually. “And it means that the big sun butt herself thinks you’re special, that you’re worth something. She wants to be a part of your life, and she wants to make you even more special than you already are.”
Scootaloo did soften a little, going limp in a huff of tired resignation. Her little chin dropped down with her head to trap the uppermost curl of Berry’s tail, muffling her next words slightly. “Why? What would she want from me? I’m not Twilight, or Princess Cadance, or-“
“ME!”
“Yeah.” Huff.
Berry shook his head slowly, resisting the common urge to face-hoof as the action would allow his adorable prisoner to escape and infect others with her moping! He begged silently for help from the sitting alicorn upon the throne, knowing that he would soon be as depressed and gothic as Scootaloo, and that was terrible. “Uh, news flash, she likes you and sees something in you. What do you want besides that; a thousand angels descending from the Summer Glens chanting ‘Special, Special, You Are Special!’ in ten thousand voices? I mean, it’d be pretty cool, but I’d think that that would have small side effects, like every-pony running around screaming with my sister in law that the end is neigh.” His chin found a mark on Scootaloo’s scalp, bouncing in place as he considered the implications of an angelic prophecy. Every-pony would probably lose their minds.
Nah, that’d be silly.
“I’m not special. I can’t even fly.” Scootaloo depressedly moped, clearly determined to revel in the terrible feelings.
“Discovered the lost arts of Pegasi Magic and started turning them practical; thus making you Pegasus Star Swirl.” Berry counted, tickling her chin with his tailfin.
“She already knew them!”
“Uh, not really? You know, with ‘I am secretly god of sun! Worship mah butt!’ But with more super sun powers.” Berry mockingly mentioned, using his tail fluke to mime Sunbeam entrancing Big Macintosh as he had seen earlier.
“She does not! She—she probably got fat from depression eating, like Dash does sometimes when she screws up a stunt!” Scootaloo yelled a little louder, riled up.
Berry chuckled, then poked Scootaloo again with his tail, nearly getting his flukes trapped by her fore hooves for his trouble. “Let’s add ‘figured out a brand new magitech drive’ to that. Or maybe ‘potentially as strong as Twilight starting out, with the endurance of Big Macintosh’ to that.” He tried, recoiling at the sheer skepticism when she wriggled around and glared over her shoulder. “Hey, don’t look at me like that! If you use your glare to raise my hair, my mane will eat me and turn me into one of those fluffy pony foal toys!” He protested with a bit of blubbering, weaving back and forth to avoid her scathing glare.
“I’m not special, darnit!”
“Are too.”
“Not.” “To.” “Not!” “Too!” “NOT!” “TOO!” “NOT!” “YES!” “NO!” “No.” “HAH! See!”
Berry almost retorted, then stopped as he tried to figure out where he screwed up, counting on his tail as he tried to figure out how she saw through the old gag. It was supposed to work every time. “Wait, how did you keep up? I guess you’re smarted that you think!” An overhead roar of displaced air trying to avoid getting punched to awesome overhead turned his attention to a potential reinforcement in the matter. “HEY! Rainbow Dash! Isn’t Scootaloo here smarter than she thinks?”
Air cracked in a mini rainboom as Dash turned 180 in a second and swooped back to hover overhead. “Uh, yeah! Duh, Scootaloo is, uh—“ She looked at Scootaloo and Berry, and the way his tail was wrapped around her like a clingy snake. “Uh, what’s going on, and what are you guys talking about? I’m totally lost.”
“Nothing! It’s nothing!” Scootaloo whined, burying her face under her fore-legs.
“I’m saving Ponyvile by heroically soaking up all of her mopeyness so as to save the town from being transformed into a gothic caricature of itself by sacrificing myself and the mopey at the altar of Nightmare Moon in the deepest level of the Castle of Two Sisters! You’ve got to help by motivating her with awesome! And blackjack—not the security pony—and maybe cotton candy.” Berry exclaimed, pulling his legs from Scootaloo’s sides long enough to wobble them in the air in a good impression of his sister-in-law.
The pair looked at him, since he’d gone completely mad.
“What? Culture is just the setup for the punch line. You really didn’t see me pulling out a Pinkie?”
“Uh…”
Fur flapped against fur as Berry let his legs flop in disgust at the lack of humor. “Every-pony is a critic.”
Feeling the awkward burning like the sun between the three of them, Rainbow started pointing towards the horizon as she backed away slowly. “So, uh, what’s really going on? ‘Cause this is starting to go full weird.”
Berry rolled his eyes. “Scootaloo here is freaking out because she realized that Sunbeam’s starting to want to adopt her. She just realized that Sunbeam is like the mom she never had. She thinks she isn’t worthy, even though the mare tries to adopt every orphan foal who catches her attention, and some of the ones who aren’t orphaned. Plus, she thinks Sunbeam has a ‘slightly cooler than thou’ thing going on; she doesn’t, by the way.” Berry noogied Scootaloo with both hooves behind her ears affectionately, trying to rub in common sense.
“Oh. Doesn’t explain why she’s mopey.” Dash dismissed, her eye twitching a little at the idea that any-pony could be cooler.
And there was the nerve Berry needed to push her a little further. Just that little lever to move the world with. The right idea in her head, and Dash would run to Sunbeam thinking it was her own idea. “Oh, Scootie here thinks she’s unworthy to be trained in the ways of cool. Even with the whole figuring out pega-magic; or possibly being stronger, faster, and more enduring than you or Twilight; or her figuring out a crazy new technology and just now discovering how to control it.” He noogied Scootaloo a little harder, his hooves converging at the crown of her scalp, to the foal’s irritation. He could just imagine the burning gleam in her eyes as she planned a thousand pranks. “It’s like she doesn’t want to become the coolest pony ever at the hooves of one of the few ponies cooler than you.” Just the right nudge, and—
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHAT? No-pony is cooler than the Dash!” Dash shouted as she zipped in closer, blowing a harsh wind around the pair with her motion.
“Except for Luna, Twilight, Princess C-“
“You know what I mean.”
“Yup.” He popped his p as Scootaloo began to quiver, especially around her chest. Ah. “I’m just saying, any-pony who works as Princess Celestia’s part time secret agent, and who personally taught Twilight most of what she knows and turned Princess Luna into ‘death metal pony,’ sponsor of the modern night scene might be just a teensy bit cooler than you.” He cocked his head, grinning a little like some mad pony trying to stop up a weather factory. “Maybe five percent cooler than you?”
“ONE TIME! One time I throw some number out like that, and no-pony ever lets me forget it! How do you even, I-arrrghbkle!” Dash inarticulately jibbered in angry gibberish. Her fore-hooves repeatedly pounded at her face as she tried not to scream.
Scootaloo had no such impediment, and began laughing out loud at her favorite mentor’s predicament. A whip-crack sounded as Berry uncoiled his tail from around her fast enough to slap sound. He held her up to Dash. “Quick, take her to the Fortress of Friendship, and cast her into the Pit of Awesome! Transform her into Scootdar the Barbarian so that I may seal away the terrible mopes and save Equestria.”
Turning crimson instantly, Scootaloo clammed up as Rainbow stopped self-flagellating and stared in confusion at the pair. “What.” That was really it, wasn’t much more to say.
“Just a stupid daydream, nothing to it.” Scootaloo weakly protested.
“A stupid daydream with Rainan of Haymeria? You dream loudly.” Berry pointed out, completing Scootaloo’s re-mortification. “Ever since her accidental flight yesterday, and her flight with Sunbeam, she’s been dreaming about it, and getting all flustered about the idea of being adopted by Sunbeam.” It was a pity that ponies couldn’t melt like sugar or ice, since the color Scootaloo was reaching suggested that she would have started flash-boiling on the deck if they did. Might have been interesting.
“What, some kind of crazy comic book adventure, like the Power Ponies?” Dash asked in confusion, her lips poking out in a duck-like squiggle that Rarity was fond of.
“Something, dunno. Real shame, too. Sunbeam will probably get distracted in her work, even if it would be the best for both of them for her to adopt Scootaloo. But, it’s not like she’ll have some-pony poking at her to get her to spend more bonding time.” Berry suggested aloud, completely and totally unsubtly poking verbally at Dash to do just that. The funny contemplative look on her face suggested she was considering it.
“Yeah, that is kind of—wait, what drive thingie? Don’t you distract me!”
“It’s all busted up. It was stupid. Didn’t work and crashed.” Scootaloo faintly pouted.”
“Yeah, kind of went kerblooie. But Scootaloo figured out how to fix it a little bit ago! Want to come see it?”