Rainbow waited for her, but Twilight never returned. Twilight didn’t come back up the stairs, at least. Standing there in Ponyville’s little tree library, Rainbow Dash peered down into the dark confines of that basement with some trepidation. Maybe it was a unicorn thing, where you liked sleeping in dark, underground caves? Rainbow Dash sure knew it was anything but a pegasus thing. Just the thought of the ground being above her was cringe inducing.
It seemed like Twilight was as weirdified as the rest of Ponyville though, and so Rainbow Dash walked out of the library with more questions than she had going into it. With no ideas on how to solve it, or anything, Rainbow Dash just went to bed.
She tried writing about it in her diary, but nothing was coming to her, outside of “Twilight was weird too.”
Answers were slow to come to her that day, but a couple days later Rainbow Dash was shuffling through her morning wakeup routine, when her ears perked up at the sound of a familiar pony shouting, “Hey!”
“Rainbow!”
“Dash!”
“Come!”
“To!”
“My!”
“Pinkie Pie, what are you doing?” Rainbow shouted, flying out of her cloud apartment and looking around. “How are you even up here?” she asked incredulously, just as her friend breached the cloud layer, the pink pony’s curly haired head rising up, and then descending down again. But first, Pinkie Pie had time to utter a single word.
“Pogo!” was the word. Shortly, her head appeared again, and she added,
“Stick!”
Wow, that did not sound safe. So Rainbow Dash flew down to where her friend was bouncing on a pogo stick that was definitely adjusted past regulation springiness. Together with Dash, Pinkie hopped on her own power, thankfully abandoning the pogo stick, down the mountain that Dash’s apartment complex had drifted up against, explaining to Rainbow Dash,
“I’m having a party but it’s not really a party but we’re all meeting together so I thought I’d make it like a party and there will be cakes and games and streamers and maybe not games because we have a lot to talk about since the Cakes started acting weird and everypony in town is waaaaay too easy to make laugh I just have to say something to them, and Rarity sees it too, and Applejack and Rarity went to see Fluttershy and she was really messed up, and Applejack tried to talk to Twilight but she’s all weirdified too so it’s just gonna be the 5 of us, an Elements of Harmony super meeting party... minus one.”
Rainbow Dash stuttered to a halt at that last sentence. Pinkie was hard to keep up with, and understand, but that last part of the sentence was clear.
Pinkie hopped ahead a bit, before looking back at Rainbow Dash. “Sorry Dashie, I didn’t mean—” she said, with a wince.
“I—I’m sorry, Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash said, her ears going down, along with her gaze. “If I hadn’t flown off when we were in the maze, we would have won the first time, instead of... instead of him getting to laugh at you all and hurt you even more.”
“Don’t be silly,” Pinkie said calmly, walking up and patting Rainbow Dash on her rainbow maned head. “If you hadn’t flown off, he wouldn’t have thought that he won, and we’d still be wandering around in that maze, when the elements were way off in the library, instead!”
Rainbow lifted her head at that. “...huh,” she concluded, tapping her chin. “I guess that is kinda true.”
“Now come on, Saddy Sadderson, and let’s go figure out what’s still wrong with everypony!” Pinkie cheered. And for once, Dash felt the flutter of hope in her breast. Together, there was nothing they couldn’t accomplish. Together...
...minus one.
“It’s been absolutely, completely bizarre!” Rarity said, laying back on her couch dramatically. They were meeting at the boutique, which Pinkie Pie had decked out with streamers, despite Rarity’s weak protests. The pink pony was currently in the process of baking up some fresh chocolate chip cookies for them to enjoy, while the rest of them swapped stories. “I returned to my boutique, triumphant! Brimming with inspiration!” Rarity proclaimed. “And the next day, a customer came by, just a Ponyville mare by the name of Lily Flowers. She absolutely adored a piece from my old fall collection from last year, but regretfully she is on a flower seller’s salary, so she couldn’t afford the sticker price. So of course I offered to give her a heavy discount. I was just unloading that stock, anyway! And do you know what happened?”
“The mare fai—” Applejack said in a predictable deadpan, while Rarity shushed her harshly, saying,
“I told you, but not everypony else, so be quiet and listen!”
Rarity cleared her throat and continued. “The mare fainted!!”
“It’s Lily,” Applejack cut in, in the same deadpan. “She’d faint if one of her flower stems was broke.”
“As she sells each flower arrangement for approximately twenty four bits, I can understand if she would be upset over losing one,” Rarity countered with a sniff. “But nevertheless... that was only the beginning!
“Every pony who came to my store tried to cheat me!” Rarity moaned, “I gave them a very reasonable price, and they all tried to bargain me down, as if I were some kind of two-timing haggling merchant who priced her goods at twice the cost, just to snatch more bits from the unwary. I had to price them higher, just to allow ponies to bargain me down. And then!”
Applejack exhaled wearily. She didn’t seem bored, just... really worn out from what she was going to hear.
“And then my own sister!” Rarity cried. “My own dear sweet little sister! She had a school recital this week. A recital that I could have provided a beautiful ensemble for! And do you know what she asked me?”
“How many woodchucks—” Rainbow started, but Rarity was on a roll and went on to say,
“She glared at me, and said she wasn’t going to pay for the costuming! My own sister, and she asked me what I was trying to get from her! I told her there was no charge, of course, because sisters help each other out! And she looked at me, and... and she said...
“She said she didn’t belie-e-heve me!” Rarity sobbed.
“‘Nice try-y, Rarity,’!” Rarity continued to wail, “‘I`m not falling for that one again,’ she said!! She thought I was despi-hi-hi-cable!”
Dash rolled her eyes and looked around to a sympathetic everypony else, while Rarity took out her emotions on the acoustic environment. It was sad what she was saying and all, but she was really going to town there, and it’s not like Rarity hadn’t exaggerated before. Rarity’s sister probably said she was... stupid or something, not quote, des-pic-a-ble unquote. Just sisters who got in a fight, right? Rainbow Dash was pretty sure that was a normal thing for sisters to do. But then something jumped into Dash’s peripheral thoughts. Just something she noticed about what Rarity said.
“Hold on,” Rainbow Dash said, once Rarity had quieted to mere sniffles, “What did Sweetie Belle mean by again?”
“I-hi-hi don’t know!” Rarity wailed, and there she goes again.
Thankfully the four of them discovered that a tub of nice, healthy, triple fudge ripple ice cream helped calm Rarity’s sorrows, and kept her mouth occupied. Rainbow would have suggested a spoonful of peanut butter, but for some reason that didn’t strike her as something that would be very well received by the others, as hilarious as it would be.
Applejack’s story was the same, minus the wailing and gnashing of teeth. What was different was Applejack herself; she still looked like death warmed over. She had big bags under her eyes, and a bandage wrapped around her shoulder for “falling down the stairs” she said. But she said it in a way that sounded a lot more haunted and lost than somepony should have been for just a simple accident.
Applejack found ponies at the market thinking she was going to cheat them too, except they didn’t haggle. They went and shopped around, as if they could find cheaper apples somewhere else.
“Strangest thing ah ever did see,” Applejack said in a wearily puzzled tone, “Ah figured maybe Apple Bloom had gone and tried selling apples again, but she said she didn’t, and that ah shouldn’t accuse her of things she didn’t do. I dunno what got mah sister all riled up about a simple question. But everypony had a chip on their withers. Even Red Gala had to leave mah stand to check the Crabs for what they’re chargin’, an’ she’s family!
“Ponies were checkin’ for bruises,” Applejack listed off, “Worms, nicks, apples in the wrong barrel, nothin’ they didn’t have a right to check for, but they just seemed extra careful-like. Like ah was gonna put every apple on its side, just to hide the bad spots?”
Applejack shook her head, “Hoo nelly, and then,” she said, “That kinda shifty mare, Berry Punch you know? She comes up thinkin’ she’s gonna get some of the secret cider supply for her pub. And ah was like, ‘Whut secret cider supply?’ She just winks at me, and says she’ll get the money up front later!”
So even for old time customers, Applejack had to see them look at her prices in disbelief and just wander off, only to come crawling back, saying they never figured she’d match prices with other stalls without any shenanigans. And her family was treating her kind of... disturbingly, but it wasn’t anything to cry about, or anything. At least, not on the outside.
Pinkie had a therapist. That was... news. Rainbow found herself at a loss to understand what was going on with Pinkie Pie, because Pinkie said in her unusual oddly dramatic way, “So there I was. Sitting in my room, and planning for the greatest party ever told. There’s a knock at the door. I answer... the door!”
A pause for dramatic effect, and then Pinkie went back to babbling.
“And there’s this nice pony coming up to my room, who I don’t really remember seeing before, but he wanted to talk with me about my feelings. So I told him that I love talking about my feelings, because I do! I told him that I was feeling happy because we saved the whoooole world, and we had a good party over it, but now I was gonna make the bestest party ever to celebrate and oh my gosh that was supposed to be a huuuuge secret, but I told him anyway, and—”
Applejack plugged Pinkie’s mouth, saying, “Woah there, Pinkie. We’re still tryin’ to catch up to what you say.” She released the pink pony, and Pinkie said with a little bit more restraint,
“It was sooo weird. He didn’t like me being happy! But I asked him why he didn’t like it, and he said that he did like me being happy. Then I asked him what his favorite color was, and he just kinda looked at me. I said I wanted to make him a special cupcake just for him, for coming here and being so nice to me, so I needed to know what color frosting to make that would really make him smile.”
Pinkie paused then, tapping her chin with a confused look on her face, as if she couldn’t quite find the words. “And then he ran screaming out of my room,” she said, “Something about a breakthrough, I think? I tried to talk to him after, but he said that I was in a very delicate state right now, and I told him I’m not in a delicate state, I’m in Equestria, silly! And get this, he didn’t laugh! I didn’t want to upset him, and the Cakes were really happy with what he said, so I guess it’s okay? Whatever makes them happy makes me happy!”
So Pinkie Pie couldn’t get the details, since she was the patient, and he was worried about breaking the... breakthrough? But it was pretty clear that this stallion thought something was... different about her. Rainbow couldn’t understand why he’d think that though. Pinkie Pie was just her normal, happy, cheerful, overly talkative self, just like she always was. Living in a bakery, making ponies laugh, pretty standard Pinkie Pie fare!
But of all of them who had shared their experiences, Fluttershy’s was probably the worst. Fluttershy didn’t want to talk about it at first. Maybe she shouldn’t have. But no, maybe she really, really should, because she needed help more than any of them. Dash and Applejack were feeling a little sick, and Pinkie was wowing head doctors (big surprise there), and Rarity was having sister problems. But Fluttershy...
Going to visit with Fluttershy, Rarity had found her taking care of her animals, way back at the beginning of the week, right after the end of Discord’s short lived second reign. With how he’d turned the animals against her, it was understandable that Fluttershy’d have to talk some sense into them. But when Rarity found her, Rarity said Fluttershy had this nasty... cut across her cheek, and Fluttershy admitted it had been left there by a squirrel’s paw. She had bites on her forearms, and a piece of her tail was kind of... torn off. Long scratches down her side. And this haunted, lost look in her eyes. Just hearing Rarity talk about it was frightening, and Fluttershy not denying it at all. But Fluttershy told them all that it wasn’t the animals she was scared of. It wasn’t her injuries that filled her with fear.
It was herself.
Fluttershy drifted along, humming happily on her way back to her lovely cottage. The economical grassy roof was green against the bright blue sky, and everything about her lovely little place made her feel at home. After the celebration over Discord’s defeat had concluded, Fluttershy was definitely ready for some rest and recuperation! She was so relieved that they had shut that awful creature back into solid stone. She felt bad for feeling that way, but the fact remains that when the Elemental power struck him, she found herself wishing just a little bit that it would just lock him away, rather than try to wash away the evil inside him.
Because if it didn’t lock him away, then that meant she would have to continue working with him. It didn’t matter how nice such a creature had become. He still had the power to touch her, and make her a monster. Fluttershy never wanted to be that way again. She had never been more afraid in her whole life, than when she couldn’t even see anything wrong with destroying her best friend’s petunias.
So it was with a sense of relief that she returned home, to her lovely little cottage where she could be surrounded by her sweet, caring animal friends. She hoped Discord hadn’t scared them too badly. He seemed to do things to them that the animals agreed with, so maybe he wasn’t that bad, though what he did to Fluttershy, and to her friends who were trying to stop him was just beyond unforgivable.
Nevertheless, Fluttershy didn’t expect much issue in rehabilitating her animals. Bunnies had to be consoled that their legs were perfectly large enough. And the squirrels would have to be taught that you don’t just eat the fruits off of some nice pony’s trees without asking, but considering that the fruits were grown to gigantic size, the squirrels were probably just taking advantage of that, and still respected a pony’s need to produce a quality crop.
Fluttershy couldn’t see any of her animal friends playing outside when she got home. Perhaps they hadn’t gotten back yet? Frowning, Fluttershy opened the door to her cottage, and she would have screamed, if she could breathe. Her cute little bird houses and mouse nests, and squirrel huts were gone. Her soft, comfy pet beds were nowhere to be seen. Her house looked very bare and... dreary in fact. Her couch was there, and a table, but there was no rug on the floor, no leaf paintings on the walls. Just herself, an empty room, and a solid wall of iron cages. They weren’t empty.
“Who did... how did... did I I—I couldn’t!” Fluttershy said in a panic. “Did I do this? As she crept closer to the cages, glittering eyes within their dark confines stared back out at her, stared accusingly. “I-it was Discord,” she told her animal friends, not because they would understand, but because she needed to tell herself. “Discord touched me, and enchanted me, and... and I just don’t remember this part,” she said reassuringly. “Oh... oh how horrible,” she whispered tearing up even just looking at the poor things. There weren’t any spaces between the cages, they were just piled up in neat, closely fitting rows. It would have been worse if they were just piled haphazardly, she supposed, because there would be even less room inside the cages then, but oh, what was she saying to herself!
“I’m so sorry this happened,” she told all of the poor, caged animals. “Just hold tight, and I’ll make sure to get each and every one of you out of these cages.”
She reached for the latch to a cage, and the animal within, it was a cat. It was Pusspuss! Fluttershy knew it was Pusspuss because her hoof barely touched the latch when a horror of fury, filthy white fur and claws came slamming against the bars of the cage, screaming like a banshee.
“Pusspuss, is that ...you?” Fluttershy trembled as the unearthly wail died to a low tense growl. “What happened to you?” she asked, “Why are you so...” The cat screamed again, and that was setting off the other animals in the cage, who groaned, growled, barked, chuffed, yowled miserably, and filled Fluttershy’s head with a horrible feeling of wrongness. She was...
She was glad that Discord had been locked in stone. He did this to her. He made her do this. She did this. Fluttershy... was the only pony who could have done this. She trembled, torn between compassion and self hatred. Fluttershy reached for the latch again.
“I had to let them out only one at a time,” Fluttershy said, surrounded by her best friends minus one, staring forward at nothing as she spoke. “It hurt so much to put them back in those cages, but I just couldn’t reason with them. My special talent is that I am very good communicating with animals, but that doesn’t help when they already know to fear me. I just had to try, one at a time, to take them out, and to feed them, and show them that I care. Some... listened.”
Outside Fluttershy’s hut, there were a pile of discarded cages, twisted and broken, bars bent, like they had been crushed by an angry bear.
“Some ran away,” Fluttershy whimpered, “And some tried to... some hurt me.”
Rarity’s tears were forgotten as she whispered, “How could anyone hurt such a kind, loving pony like you?”
“I wasn’t a kind, loving pony,” Fluttershy said, a trace of emotion in her voice as her eyes filled with tears. “Do you remember what he did to me? Don’t you remember what I was?”
Nopony really wanted to answer, as Fluttershy looked around mournfully. Collecting herself, Fluttershy took a slow breath, closed her eyes and said,
“You were a big mean, meanie-pants!” came Pinkie Pie’s voice from the kitchen, as she trotted in with a plate filled with cookies.
“I was!” Fluttershy openly sobbed, breaking down right there in the boutique, her tears hitting the floor as she quietly screamed out, “I hurt ponies, and I hurt animals, and I couldn’t even see any way that it was wrong! I made them hate me, and I don’t even remember!”
After finishing glaring at Pinkie Pie, Applejack stood from where she was sitting on her belly and trotted over to the sobbing Fluttershy. “You cain’t tear yourself up over things that already happened,” Applejack told her. “If he did this to you... Discord must’ve been worse than any of us even imagined. I reckon that’s why the Elements locked him up in stone, because there weren’t a lick of good in him that could be saved.”
“Fluttershy please,” Rarity put in, putting her forehooves around the slender pony, and pulling the shuddering Fluttershy into a hug. “You can’t blame yourself for what you did under his influence. We all did things we regret, like that! If only I had managed to resist that diamond, I might have... well, I might have held out another few minutes at least.”
“He didn’t even use a diamond on me,” Fluttershy said tearfully, turning her nose against Rarity’s white, fuzzy chest. “He just touched me, and then it was like I had always been that way! It was so easy, it was horrible!”
“It was horrible,” Pinkie Pie said in pleasant agreement. When everypony except Fluttershy glared at her, Pinkie shrugged and said, “What? It was.”
“Th...thank you Pinkie,” Fluttershy whispered. Everypony turned to her again with a collective,
“Huhh?”
“I needed to cry; it was so bad, and the tears just wouldn’t... I couldn’t tell myself how horrible I really was,” Fluttershy explained softly, wiping delicately at her cheeks with her wing. “I just... sometimes you just... need somepony to tell you what you can’t tell yourself.”
“Any time, Fluttershy,” Pinkie said with a calm smile, pushing the plate towards Fluttershy’s embrace with Rarity. “Cookie?”
Fluttershy took one cookie, and sat there with Rarity to her back, silently nibbling at it, and saying no more.
“I can’t take it anymore!” Rainbow Dash wailed in frustration. “What are we supposed to do? I can barely even talk to my team, weather or racing, and Applejack’s family thinks she’s still under Discord’s curse. And Rarity too, or something. But like, not really? Pinkie Pie... isn’t like that, and Twilight is all weirdified. And Fluttershy?? How are you even dealing with that!”
“All we c’n do at this point,” Applejack said unhappily, tilting her hat over her bloodshot eyes, “Is just watch, and wait it out. We gotta try an’ convince ponies that they ain’t second guessing us, and that they really cain get better, from whatever it is Discord did to ‘em.”
“What I can do is help Fluttershy with her animals,” Rainbow Dash said confidently. “I’ll kick the tail of any of them that even think about hurting Fluttershy!”
“I hardly think such brute force is called for,” Rarity drawled out, “What she needs is a more subtle touch to assist with her animals.”
“Rarity, no. Your cat already acts like that to you, so how are you gonna stop other animals?” Dash whined in protest.
Rarity frowned at Rainbow Dash and said, “I’ll have you know that my Opalescence is the sweetest, most adorable, most innocent... okay, you have a point.”
“I wish I could ask Twilight,” Fluttershy said in a subdued tone. Which is to say her normal tone of voice. “She’s not busy with training and a job on the weather team. She could spend more time with them... and me.”
“I dunno if you want to ask her,” Rainbow said with an unfortunate touch to her expression, “Twilight is in one of her moods again. I couldn’t get anything out of her, other than everything is fine, and there’s no reason to be alarmed, and I was just asking for the time of day!”
Applejack looked at Dash blandly, and stated, “So, that means in Twilight-talk that nothin’ is fine, and we have every reason to be alarmed.”
“Yyyyep,” Rainbow Dash said, leaning on a rack of dresses and contemplating just what could get Twilight so worked up like that. You know, aside from everything, and next Tuesday.
“Still,” Rarity said, carefully casually, “Applejack is right. The best thing we can do now is get back to our lives, and keep our ears to the ground, so to speak. This doesn’t seem to be getting worse, and other than Rainbow Dash and I taking shifts to help Fluttershy,” she paused to glare at Rainbow Dash challengingly, “It seems there’s no imminent trouble that we are at the current time capable of addressing.”
“Yeah, and also there’s not much we can do right now,” Pinkie said sympathetically.
“Let’s meet next Mondee,” Applejack suggested. “Just the six...uh... five of us, and hopefully six, if one of us cain talk some sense into Twilight. If anything came up since then, maybe we’ll have a better idear what to do.”
With that plan in place, the five of them made idle chatter and then disbanded. Rainbow did her best to follow along with that plan, which would have been great if she wasn’t so tired all the time. What was she, out of shape, or what? Her stamina was just shot, even though her speed was high as ever, and her reflexes beyond par. But reflexes wouldn’t help, when you kept falling asleep at weird hours of the day when you should be doing things. Applejack’s stupid bug was persistent, but Rainbow Dash was definitely on her way to recovery, and so was Applejack believe it or not. They both got a little better every day it seemed.
Didn’t help Dash’s recovery that Fluttershy’s animals had all turned into vicious pony eating monsters, who would sooner attack you than listen to you. Especially the squirrels! But that, and her other troubles, were all things Rainbow Dash could deal with. There was one thing she could not deal with. One thing Rainbow Dash could not deal with. A week into this whole mess, Rainbow Dash had the lucky or unlucky luck to run into Scootaloo.
Scootaloo sought her out, in fact. Rainbow wasn’t sure of a lot of things now, but she was sure of the little pumpkin orange filly’s devotion for her. Rainbow Dash’s #1 fan was sure to be not affected by this weirdo... weird stuff that Rainbow couldn’t quite put her hoof on. Oh, of course Scootaloo wouldn’t be affected. Yeah, right. Sure. More like affected more than everypony else combined!
The kid was smiling at her! Dash was finishing her daily workout, and Scootaloo comes buzzing up on her scooter, beaming from ear to ear. Dash smiled back in relief, afraid that Scootaloo would hate her too, when Scootaloo pulled her scooter up and around, and said, “Hi, Rainbow Dash! I bet you’ll really love what I have for you this time!”
“Oh, really?” Rainbow said, perking at the thought that the squirt might think it’s her birthday or something. “Whatcha got?”
Scootaloo had a rather large wooden box nailed to the back of her scooter now, and she unlocked the padlock and pulled open the lid saying excitedly, “I did it just like you told me. It was easier than I thought! Nopony even noticed when I went into the houses.”
“You... what?” Dash said, looking in the box with a sinking feeling. It was full of bits.
“They’re all for you,” Scootaloo said lovingly, closing the box and trotting up to nuzzle Rainbow Dash, except she stopped short of doing it. “I bet you’re real proud of me,” the little filly said, puffing out her chest, “You can totally pay your bills now. Did I do good? Do you like it, huh?”
“Where... the hay did you get all those bits?” Rainbow Dash asked, raising her voice despite herself. Scootaloo didn’t just, just... what?
“I went in the houses, like you said!” Scootaloo whined. “Check under the mattresses, and break open anything that looks like it’s locked for a reason,” she practically recited. “Don’t let anypony see you, and don’t leave any hair behind,” no, she literally recited. “And now you have um, money,” Scootaloo said uncertainly, “Like you needed for your bills! Did I do—”
“I can pay my own bills!” Rainbow Dash retorted in a panicked fury. “You broke into ponies’ houses? You stole their bits?”
“Yes?” Scootaloo said in confusion, her smile frozen on her face. “Just like you wanted. Nopony caught me, I promise! You need these bits, because you can’t pay your bills! And I don’t know how it works exactly, but you said I would be cool if I could help you out.”
“By stealing bits?! That’s not what I meant!” Rainbow shouted aghast in horror. “How is stealing in any way cool?!”
“B-but you said—” Scootaloo said flat on her rear, eyes brimming with tears, which seemed to be a common thing in Rainbow Dash’s life now.
“I don’t care what I said!” Rainbow Dash practically roared. “You need to get these bits back to the ponies who own them, right away!”
“O... okay I’ll just...” Scootaloo said, struggling mightily to keep her composure. “J-just go into the houses again and t-try to remember how much there was”
“You can’t do that, that’s like double stealing, and you could get caught!” Dash said, pacing frantically, “Argh, I can’t believe I’m saying this. You need to—you need to take that box to town hall in like the middle of the night. No, no not the box, just like... a grocery bag you could get from anywhere. Just—just leave the bits in there, and don’t let any hair—I mean—don’t let anything point back to you. Just leave them there and run, and never ever do something like this again!”
“I messed up real bad, didn’t I,” Scootaloo whimpered miserably. “I thought you wanted me to—”
“Well I didn’t,” Rainbow Dash said curtly, “And you should know better. It’s not right to take things that aren’t yours.”
Scootaloo was really breaking down at this point. Rainbow Dash didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t good with words! She just said stuff! “O-okay I’ll,” Scootaloo managed to get out of her shaking chest, “G-grocery bag... town hall midnight and it’ll be okay then...”
“Look,” Dash sighed, squatting on her haunches next to the filly, who turned away as Dash got near. “You really messed up,” Rainbow told her, “It’s gonna take a while before anything will be okay, after pulling a stunt like this. I know I sound mean, but I’m trying to look out for you! I don’t want to send my number one fan packing off to juvenile hall!”
Scootaloo’s distress showed no signs of abating as she said, “Okay R-rainbow Dash I love—” and she just froze stiff at that, for one timeless moment. “I–I’m sorry,” Scootaloo cursed quietly, “I didn’t—” but that’s as far as she got, before Rainbow Dash absolutely had to wrap Scootaloo up in the biggest, tightest, most desperate bear hug that she could manage. Scootaloo didn’t even hug back for a while, but she did, and Scootaloo was crying but that was okay, and Rainbow Dash was crying, but that was okay, and neither of them knew how things had gone so wrong, but for now they just... had each other. And that was okay.
It turned out Scootaloo didn’t even have parents! She was just... a runaway from Trottingham. How did Dash never know this, before? Scootaloo was like, a mini her! That explained why Scootaloo was so skinny and her mane was so tangly. Dash’d thought Scootaloo was just trying to emulate her own windswept mane, but... maybe Dash should brush herself more often. So Rainbow Dash wasn’t going to send Scootaloo back to... whatever she ran away from. Dash didn’t know how to deal with that really. But she did have an apartment, and food, and the least she could do was make sure Scootaloo had somepony to take them to school every day ...and food. Wasn’t the most convenient of relationships, but the kid was like... over-overjoyed about it. Like Scootaloo expected anything less of her!
True to the filly’s word, there was a big grocery sack full of bits out in front of the doors to town hall that morning, and nary a purple hair to be found among it. If anypony figured out it was Scootaloo who did it, they didn’t act on it. Divvying the loot up among the ponies who discovered their savings were purloined was no easy task though. After a thief so effectively “tested” Ponyville’s security, more ponies started using locks on their doors. There were more police ponies strutting around the streets. Took a while for things to be okay again, it really did.
Though frankly at a heightened level of alert, Ponyville was a lot safer place for ponies who did not want to be burglars and thieves.
That’s what Rainbow Dash wrote down in her diary. She didn’t use Scootaloo’s name. She didn’t dare. If somepony read her private diary and could actually read her squiggly, round mouthwriting, if they found this diary, well... they wouldn’t know it was Scootaloo. Rainbow Dash was prepared to take responsibility for whatever heat that filly would sustain.
Rainbow Dash finished writing her diary entry, spat the pencil back into the pencil holder, and she sat there looking at the open page for a while. Scootaloo was already asleep in the other bed that Rainbow Dash made, and the whole evening was nice and peaceful. Rainbow Dash’s life the past two weeks drifted around her mind, like somepony threw a jigsaw puzzle in the bathtub and all the pieces were just floating around, but not making any sense. The whole thing stunk of Discord, but beyond pointing an accusing hoof at a cold, stone statue, there really wasn’t anything obvious to deduce. It all floated around in her head, nothing meshing together, sitting there just outside of her awareness.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, Rainbow Dash was a quintessential pegasus. On a hunch, she went and flipped back through her diary, an idle curiosity that could have only occurred to somepony like her. Rainbow Dash turned to the last entry dated before Discord woke up from his stone prison. It wasn’t her mouthwriting.