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// 4: Visiting Old Friends. 
// Story: I Dreamt to Fly 
// by MrDynasty 
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Scootaloo was hovering around slowly in different directions, stopping each time she changed. She wasn't able to change on the fly, but at least it was something. She and Rainbow Dash had been training for about two hours, including some minor breaks to rest.

Upon going right, Scootaloo started to lose her balance mid-air and wobble a bit. Rainbow Dash quickly held her up with one of her front hooves. “Whoops; almost lost it there Squirt. But you’re doing extremely well! You can now hover forward for the most part I think, but your balance is off when you go to the sides and we haven’t touched going backwards yet. Trust me when I say that it’s the hardest to do.” She said smiling and pulling her hoof down.

The filly nodded with a smile, moving to the left and having some minor balance troubles again. However she managed to keep her balance and hover back down to the ground. “Thanks, Dash. It means a lot coming from you, one of the greatest fliers in all of Equestria!” She said as she saw the cyan Pegasus moving over to the papers on the ground.

Rainbow Dash picked up the papers and placed them in the saddlebag, hauling it over her back afterwards. “I think we've done enough for now since you've made a lot of progress today! But I told you you’d be flying in no time with my help.” 

With a confident trot, Scootaloo went over to Rainbow Dash and hugged one of her front legs. The rainbow maned Pegasus ruffled up the small filly’s mane with her other hoof, chuckling slightly. “You’re welcome. It’s always nice helping someone you care about so much. Anyway, I need to go give these notes and junk to Twilight, duty calls.” Rainbow Dash said, beginning to trot in the direction of the Friendship Castle. 

Scootaloo nodded, trotting in a different direction from her carer. “I’ll go and visit Applebloom and Sweetie Belle then. See what they've been doing without me. I promise I won’t get into any trouble!” She said, quickly galloping towards the centre of Ponyville.

It didn't take her much time before she ended up in the calm but crowded centre of Ponyville. A lot of ponies had shops set up there where goods could be bought, but no sight of Applebloom or her big sister. Scootaloo trotted around the shops, looking at what they were all selling. 

Before managing to move on outside of the shop area, Twilight and Spike saw Scootaloo and waved before moving over to her. Twilight lifted one of her front legs once she reached the filly. “How are you doing, Scootaloo?” The cheerful alicorn asked.

With a wide grin, Scootaloo jumped up into the air and started hovering. “I'm doing great! Rainbow Dash has been teaching me a lot, like hovering and moving while hovering. Soon enough I’ll be learning how to soar across the sky!” She said with an excited tone. She hovered back down and looked to Twilight.

Twilight nodded and giggled. “I hope so! I’d love to see you flying across Ponyville. Also speaking of Rainbow Dash, where is she if she’s not with you?” She asked as her leg was lowered back onto the ground again. 

Scootaloo placed a hoof on her chin and said “You didn't see her yet? She’s going to your place to give you the notes or whatever. Surprised you didn't pass her when you came out.” Spike looked to Twilight before moving his view to Scootaloo.

“Actually, we've been walking around for nearly two hours now I think? I think that’s correct. But we've been visiting our friends and seeing how they've been. I convinced Twilight to leave the castle for once since she had her head stuck in the books for a looooong time.” He said, crossing his arms.

Twilight just gave a glare to Spike, noticing his passive aggressive response. “It was not a long time; I was reading for two days! Either way we better go back if Rainbow Dash is coming over, knowing how fast she is she’ll probably be there by now!” Twilight said, quickly trotting the other way back to her castle and saying “See you later Scootaloo! Thanks for the heads up!” 

Spike sighed and started following Twilight. “We better be coming back out once you get those notes, don’t use this as an excuse to stay there!” He shouted to the alicorn, picking up the pace.

Scootaloo just chuckled a little, not knowing if her mentioning Rainbow Dash did more bad than good, specifically to Spike. The filly turned around and trotted in the direction of Applejack’s barn in the hopes of finding Applebloom. If she wasn't in the town then she was probably there. 

It didn’t take the filly more than five minutes to get to Applejack’s barn, passing most of Ponyville’s landmarks in the process. When she got there the first thing that she noticed was the air giving off quite a distinct smell of apples, which of course she expected. She trotted over to the small house in which the apple family stayed in, knocking on the front door with one of her hooves.

She knew who was going to answer the door just from the hoof steps she heard coming over to it. Small but quick taps preceded the opening of the front door with Applebloom standing at the entrance. “Heya Scootaloo! How have you been? Haven’t seen you in the past couple days.” Applebloom said, moving aside to let Scootaloo in.

Scootaloo trotted inside and smiled to her southern friend as she looked at her. “I've been doing great! Rainbow Dash has been teaching me the basics of using my wings to fly and such, so I have been a little busy. What about you though?” She asked Applebloom.

Sitting down, Applebloom pulled her hoof up to her chin as she responded to Scootaloo. “Me? Well a've not been doing anything that exciting lately. I've mostly just been called to help around the house a lot with stuff like cleaning and carrying things. I don’t mind helpin' my family like this though, even if it seems boring.” She said with smile. 

Sitting down as well and nodding to the red maned filly, Scootaloo said “Yeah, it does sound pretty boring; I don’t know how you could just do chores all day. Also, any chance of us getting back together to do some cutie mark crusaders stuff? It seems like whenever one of us isn't busy; the others are, so we've not been able to do much crusading.” She asked, fluttering her wings a little.

Applebloom had to think about it first, letting out a small ‘hmmm’ noise. “A'm pretty sure I don’t have anything going on tomorrow, and even if I did I'm sure Applejack wouldn’t mind me takin' a break to hang out with ya'll.” She said, putting her hoof down.

Scootaloo nodded. “What about Sweetie Belle? You think she’ll come?” She asked, lifting one of her front hooves up. Applebloom gave a small shrug to Scootaloo from not knowing the answer.

“I ain't too sure if she will. From what I heard from Applejack, apparently Sweetie Belle is goin' into some sort of music class or something. Suppose we might just have to go to her when tomorrow comes?” Applebloom said as she stood up on all four hooves.

Scootaloo stood up as well as she nodded again to Applebloom. “We’ll have to! No crusader left behind! Anyway, want to do anything now or are you busy?” She asked as she looked around, trying to find anything they could do together.

The red maned filly trotted over to the closest window and looked out of it. “Well, we could help out Applejack in harvesting more apples. She’s been at it for a couple days so it must be gettin’ tiring. I know it ain't exactly a load a fun, but you said you've been learning some stuff about flyin', so you could show me while we did it!” Applebloom said with a smile as she looked back to Scootaloo.

Scootaloo trotted over to the entrance of the house. “It’s okay that it doesn't sound like fun, but I’d be glad to help. Who knows, maybe we can make a game out of it! Whoever gets the most apples wins!” She said, having a competitive grin on her face as she looked to Applebloom.

Coming over to Scootaloo and having a slight grin herself, Applebloom lifted up her hoof for Scootaloo to bump and said. “Well you better be prepared to eat my dust, because you’re on!”






Back at the Friendship Castle, Rainbow Dash was just about to leave after placing the notes on Twilight’s table, but she was suddenly stopped by the alicorn herself coming through the front entrance. “Rainbow Dash! Sorry I wasn't here when you came in, me and Spike decided to wander around Ponyville a bit to have a break from reading books. We came across Scootaloo who told me that you were coming here, so I had to make sure I got the notes.” She said as Spike came up behind her. 

Rainbow Dash shrugged and started trotting back inside the castle. “I was planning to just drop off the notes anyway, so I don’t see why you needed to rush back here for it.” She says, Twilight following her back inside and going down the long hallway.

Twilight quickly opened her wings and flew over to her table, picking up both the previous and new set of notes that Rainbow Dash had given her. She came back over and landed next to the cyan Pegasus immediately after. “Well, I wanted to ask you some things since these notes aren't exactly as informative as I’d like. No offence of course.” Twilight said, smiling nervously to the other Pegasus.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes slightly at her friend. “Implying I’d be good at writing down notes. I just wrote down what happened and stuff, not really anything specific which I'm guessing is what you meant.” She said, fluttering her wings


The alicorn nodded in response, reading through the new batch of notes that Rainbow had placed on her table. “Yes, I’m looking for specific information like how Scootaloo reacted to certain tasks. Also how you motivated her, how you helped her get to grips with flying, just general stuff like that.” She said, looking over to the cyan coloured pony. 

Rainbow Dash chuckled slightly and grinned. “You want to ask me what I had for breakfast too?”