//------------------------------// // Kismet // Story: No Longer Lost // by KiroTalon //------------------------------// "Do you have your homework?" "Yes." "Your lunch?" "Yes." "Pencils, paper, books?" Octavia's eye twinkled in amusement. Scootaloo sighed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, mom. Oh, hey," she said, suddenly remembering something. "Apple Bloom wanted to have a Crusader sleepover tonight." "Is that so?" her mother asked, smiling. "What are you going to try to get your cutie marks in this time?" Scootaloo shrugged as if she hadn't really thought about it. "I think we're gonna try mime, juggling, architecture, staring contests, knife throwing, and mane styling." Octavia ignored the second to last item, knowing Scootaloo was intentionally needling her. "I thought you already tried to get your mane styling cutie mark." "Well, sort of. We really only got to try dyeing before Miss Rarity made us stop. Something about turning her clients into a freakshow." She shrugged. "Anyway, we're just gonna practice on ourselves this time." Octavia spent a moment contemplating whether it was worth the inevitable protracted argument to try and discourage Scootaloo from cutting her or her friends' manes. She decided that if the sleepover went as they usually did, the trio would get through their first three options before running out of steam and settling down to watch movies until they fell asleep. She'd watched this precise scenario play out a dozen times in her own living room. "Alright then. Where were you going to have it?" "Well..." The filly's hesitation could mean only one thing, and Octavia knew what she was going to say before she did. Even so, she patiently waited for Scootaloo to finish, smiling faintly to herself. "We were going to do it at the Apples', but Applejack said she didn't want us crashing around in Apple Bloom's bedroom while she was trying to sleep, especially in the middle of harvest season. And Sweetie Belle said that Rarity still hasn't gotten over what we did to her clothes horse...soooo..." She grinned hopefully up at her adopted mother, who rolled her eyes and smiled. "Oh, very well. You know the rules, though. Homework first, then Crusading, and lights out at nine." "Ten?" the little filly asked hopefully, as she often did. "Nine." Octavia repeated, unmoved. The little pegasus scowled at the ground. "You're no fun. I shoulda asked Mama Vy." The earth pony chuckled softly and mussed her daughter's mane with a hoof. "Yes, well, next time, perhaps." Suddenly, the unmistakeable sound of an old-fashioned school bell cut through the conversation, and both ponies glanced over to see Miss Cheerilee standing in front of the schoolhouse with the bell in her mouth, ringing it vigorously with short nods of her head that sent her billowing pink curls bouncing wildly around her face. The school teacher's face shone with the quiet contentment of preparing to begin another day doing what she was born to do, and her enthusiasm was infectious, even for young ponies who might otherwise have dreaded the prospect of spending another day stuck indoors, studying. Scootaloo was one such young pony, and Octavia knew that if it weren't for Miss Cheerilee's unique ability to inspire young minds, the restless little pegasus might not have bothered with school at all. As it was, she immediately turned and started trotting towards the school, pausing only to cast a hurried, "Bye, Mama Tavi!" over her shoulder as she burst into a run, meeting Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle halfway across the front lawn and running with them the rest of the way to the door. "Have a good day!" Octavia managed to yell back before Scootaloo got too far away to hear her, and she smiled as she settled back onto her haunches, watching as the class slowly collected in front of their teacher. As usual, Snips, Snails, and Diamond Tiara were the last to join the group. The magenta earth pony cast an appraising glance over the collected children before nodding in satisfaction and stepping aside to allow them to file into the schoolhouse. As they passed, she lazily peered about the schoolyard, her face breaking into a smile when she saw Octavia standing by the road. She waved enthusiastically, as she did most days, and Octavia returned the wave. This time, however, the schoolteacher left her post by the entrance and trotted over to the other mare, beaming the whole way. "Good morning, Octavia! How are you today?" The grey mare smiled back. "Doing well, Miss Cheerilee. And yourself?" "I do what I love and it never gets boring. I suppose I couldn't ask for much more." She paused for a brief instant before grinning widely. "Sooo...it's been a few months, right?" "Three months exactly as of tomorrow, yes," Octavia said. "Well, how's life with a foal treating you and Vinyl?" Octavia smirked, shaking her head in mock exasperation. "At once much better and much worse than either of us could ever have imagined. The only constant is that we never know what to expect, and we're always playing catch-up." Her expression softened as she glanced over Cheerilee's shoulder and watched Scootaloo chatting animatedly with her friends as they followed their classmates into the school. "And that neither of us would have it any other way." Cheerilee smiled warmly. "I'm glad to hear that. The difference in Scootaloo is remarkable. I used to look forward to the days when she would come to school well-groomed, well-fed, and alert. Now, I don't even remember what it looked like when she wasn't. It's wonderful." She beamed at Octavia with a faint sheen in her eyes. "Thank you...for taking her in." Octavia blushed lightly. "Oh, it was nothing, really. I mean...we couldn't have done otherwise, I don't think." "Even so," Cheerilee shook her head. "Anyway, I just wanted to check and make sure everything's going well, and ask if you needed any help or advice or anything. I don't have any of my own foals, but I know they can be...difficult. If there's anything I can do--" "We'll let you know," Octavia interrupted her with a grin. "Nothing's changed since the last time you asked." Cheerilee smiled sheepishly. "Well, I just want to make sure you know." "We know. We appreciate it." The earth pony nodded. "Alright. Well, the school day won't start until I show up, so I guess I'd better get inside. Tell Vinyl I said 'hi'!" she said as she turned and trotted back to the schoolhouse. "I will," Octavia said, waving at the retreating magenta mare before turning and starting back up the road into town, already going over her mental checklist of a dozen or so errands she had to do today. She had to stop by the market and pick up a few items that they seemed to go through with remarkable speed these days, swing by the library and drop off a couple of books that Scootaloo had let get a few days overdue...again, she needed to hunt down Rainbow Dash and return her book - "Flightless, Fearless - Famous flightless Pegasi and their triumph over adversity", she had to make sure she got to the post office before they closed so Scootaloo's letter to Bumble would get to him on time... Octavia sighed shallowly. Despite multiple warnings that raising a foal was harder than anyone could expect or explain, she and Vinyl had been shocked at just how much harder it turned out to be. The sheer amount of additional chores, bits, and time necessary to do a halfway decent job was astounding, and had been something of a wake-up call. The first week had been the hardest; coming from a leisurely, placid, generally simple life only to be immediately thrown into the harried, expensive, frustrating world of motherhood had stressed both mares almost beyond tolerance, and there had been more than one tearful, hushed row between the two, arguing as quietly as possible across the bedroom, hoping against hope that Scootaloo couldn't hear them fretting about problems that she had--through no fault of her own--been the root cause of. It had been a long few weeks. Eventually, however, the arguments had become less frequent and less vehement as the two had learned to take some things in stride, and to work around others. Then one night they had discovered Scootaloo crying quietly behind the couch in the living room, and after some coaxing they had convinced her to reveal that the little filly had heard enough of their arguments to determine that her new parents were fighting about her. Crushed, she had retreated to her makeshift bedroom and had been planning to ask Bumble to come and retrieve her. "I-I don't want you t-to fight over me..." she had hiccuped quietly, looking at her hooves as she sat between her mothers. "I'd rather l-live at the h-home than m-make you hate each other." The two mares had looked at each other, horrified and heartbroken, before immediately and simultaneously diving forward to crush the little pegasus in a tight hug. "Oh, Scootaloo, we don't hate each other!" Octavia had exclaimed, tears springing to her eyes. "Yeah," Vinyl added in a shaky voice, holding their daughter close. "And we're not fighting over you, you silly filly. We're fighting because, well..." she grinned over Scootaloo's wild magenta mane at her marefriend, "that's just how we communicate." She nuzzled the little pegasus fondly. "It's not your fault, and it never will be. Promise." Scootaloo smiled tentatively, sniffing. "Really?" Octavia nodded. "Sweetie, Vinyl and I fight a lot. It's just part of our relationship. We're not mad at each other or at you, we're just...well, we just clash sometimes. But that's half the fun of being together," she smiled, her eyes glistening as she glanced at the wild, immature, ridiculous, and utterly irresistible mare hugging their daughter with her. "It's never boring." She looked back down at Scootaloo. "But if it bothers you, we'll try not to. At least not when you're around, alright?" Scootaloo looked up at her, still blinking away tears. "But...if it's fun, I don't want you to stop." Octavia giggled. "Well, perhaps fun wasn't the right word. Anyway, it's not worth upsetting you." "Tell you what," Vinyl suddenly interjected with a grin. "How about we keep fighting--'cuz we're going to anyway," she smirked and winked at her marefriend, who blushed faintly, "but you let us know if it's really upsetting you, okay? Any time you want, if we're making you nervous or scared or sad, you just barge into the room and tell us to cut it out, alright?" Scootaloo giggled. "Alright." Octavia nodded her agreement. "That sounds like a good plan. We'll try to be quiet and not fight when you're home, but if we forget, you just let us know, and we'll stop. No argument is more important than you are, understand?" The filly smiled and snuggled against both of her mothers. "Yeah. I understand." And that had more or less ended the arguments, at least the ones about Scootaloo. It turned out most of the arguments that had involved her had been about other things anyway, and somehow one or the other of them had always managed to make it about their new daughter. With a good reason to avoid bringing her into their normal regimen of ridiculous, unimportant, often childish arguments, they hadn't. Instead, they discussed her quietly, civilly, and pleasantly. Then, fifteen minutes later they would be standing on opposite sides of the living room, yelling about whether Draft Punk was more integral to the musical arts than Beethoofen, usually while Scootaloo sat quietly on the sofa between them, smiling faintly as she did her math homework, occasionally interrupting the shouting match to ask a question, which one or the other mare would calmly answer before picking the argument back up where they'd left it. It had happened quickly, smoothly, and almost imperceptibly. Octavia and Vinyl had, in the space of a quarter of a year, gone from a comfortable, formulaic life as a childless couple to a frenetic, exasperating, infinitely rewarding life as parents to a filly whom they were swiftly discovering had been the missing piece they hadn't realized they'd been lacking. The rest of the town was slowly coming to discover that Scootaloo was much more than she had once appeared to be. Where she had originally been a seen as nothing more than a nuisance, or even a threat, ponies were beginning to see that there was much more to the rambunctious little filly than anyone had taken the opportunity to discover. As Octavia made her way back into the town square, her eyes fell upon the facade of Sugar Cube Corner. She frowned shallowly. One pony who still seemed unfazed by Scootaloo's new status as a properly-parented filly was Carrot Cake. The yellow stallion had made no further attempts to contact the new family, for good or ill, and Octavia and Vinyl had eventually decided that that was for the best. Still, Octavia mused quietly to herself, it was a shame, and somewhat odd that the Cakes as a family seemed to be going out of their way to avoid Scootaloo, even now that she actually had the family, and the discipline, that Mr. Cake had been attempting to force her into in the first place. Mrs. Cake was no better, for while she displayed no overt dislike of the filly, she was by no means friendly to her. At best, she simply followed her husband's lead and treated her like a stranger whenever she came into the bakery. But it didn't matter. Not really. Octavia smiled as she walked through town, waving, nodding, and occasionally greeting one new friend after another. Scootaloo's story had spread like wildfire through the small population of the village, and within days everypony knew who she and Vinyl were. Despite living on the outskirts of town and being relatively new additions to the community, being the inadvertent heroines in Scootaloo's now well-known tragic story had propelled them into the inner circle of Ponyville's oldest and closest friends, most notably the famous Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, most of whom Octavia was surprised to realize they already knew. She had already met Rarity and Applejack, of course, and Vinyl had been friends with Rainbow Dash for years. Pinkie somehow knew them both--despite having never met Octavia between their arrival in Ponyville and the inevitable "Congratulations on Being Adopted!" party she had thrown for Scootaloo--and Vinyl had eventually--sheepishly--revealed the catastrophe that had catalyzed the entire adoption process. Octavia had had to contemplate for several hours on whether to beat Vinyl to death or simply within an inch of her life (contemplation that had occurred while she sat outside of the locked bathroom door, ignoring Vinyl's pleas for clemency from inside). Eventually, she decided that since it had resulted in Scootaloo joining their dysfunctional little family, Vinyl's lapse in good judgment could be forgiven, and she had released the hapless mare from the bathroom. Of course, she had then discovered that Vinyl had used the time during her imprisonment to make small sculptures out of wet toilet paper all over the previously spotless floor, and the cycle had started again. Eventually, they were introduced to Fluttershy (much to the Pegasus' apparent horror), and Twilight Sparkle, a mare of unparalleled intelligence with whom Octavia and Vinyl had discovered--true to Cheerilee's promise--they had a great deal in common . She too had come to Ponyville later in life, and had had to make friends from the outside in. Despite her fame and prominence from being the Hero of Equestria and Princess Celestia's protege and Princess Luna's close personal friend, the young lavender mare was surprisingly down to earth, very humble and pleasant to be around. True to her unicorn heritage, and reinforcing Cheerilee's suggestion that she and Octavia had a great deal in common, her preferences apparently also leaned towards mares, and her partner turned out to be a bombastic, animated, utterly ridiculous unicorn as well. Trixie, Twilight's mate, was very nearly the polar opposite of her partner, sensational, showy, arrogant, and generally well-suited to her chosen profession of showmare. Naturally, she and Vinyl got along swimmingly--after they both got over the fact that they had just met somepony even more comically theatrical than they were. After a tense initial meeting, the two quickly fell into discussing various performance techniques and tricks, swapping trade secrets and giggling together about their more refined, stuck-up marefriends. Over time, the two mares had become good friends with everypony in town. Vinyl was now receiving multiple requests to DJ at small personal parties, requests she was more than happy to fulfill. The sheer number of parties combined with the somewhat shorter time commitments resulted in her making a slightly better living than she had been at the seedier clubs, and the new regimen kept her out of the less savory parts of town, much to Octavia's relief. She still performed for large audiences at larger parties, but she no longer had to check over her shoulders on her way home every other night. Octavia had begun to give private music lessons to some of the fillies and colts in the village, and a few were proving exceptionally talented. Her gentle, reassuring methodology coupled with the enormous patience she had developed living with Vinyl proved to be a sensational combination, and she soon had more foals applying than she could ever have time for. She did her best to focus on those who seemed genuinely interested in learning and improving, most notably--and perhaps surprisingly--Rarity's young sister Sweetie Belle who, in addition to having a wonderful singing voice, was remarkably talented with music in general. It was strangely fulfilling work, much like being a mother was turning out to be. Everything changed so quickly now, she reflected as she trotted up to the library and waved at Twilight, who grinned and waved back as she pointedly ignored Trixie's typically melodramatic irritation at being interrupted in the middle of a conversation. Although it would be disingenuous to suggest every change had felt like a positive one, there was no doubt that the general direction that her little family's life was going was a good one, and they had Scootaloo to thank for that, without question. The little filly had been a sudden and intense infusion of intense, superlative emotions, from euphoric joy to crushing disappointment, fear and anticipation, enthusiasm and regret...and all of it resulting in memories that Octavia treasured deeply in those precious few quiet moments she could manage to find in between music lessons, helping Scootaloo with homework, balancing their new budget, and making time to see all of their new friends. It was the best change they could ever have hoped for. And to think it could have been just another night.