Light in the dark
Chapter 3
‘’Shoot! not again,’’ Scootaloo thought as she fell over after trying to get up for the fifth time in a row. She didn’t want to give up on this; she felt like she had to do this. She had to. She would keep trying until she got it right. As she pulled her legs underneath herself again, readying for her next attempt, she noticed the cyan hoof which was being put down to her right side.
‘’Need some help with that?’’ the pegasus asked her, trying to sound as soothing as possible.
‘’I’m fine… I just need to get accustomed to getting up with just three legs.’’
The filly tried to come across on a convincing tone, but Rainbow Dash wouldn’t take it. She shove her hoof closer to the little pegasus, insisting she accepted her offer for help.
‘’Come on, you don’t have to prove yourself to anypony here. It’s not a shame to accept another pony’s aid. Just let me help you up, alright?’’
‘’I don’t want your help, I can do this alright? I just need to lean onto my right side more and then I can… whoa!’’ she cried out just as she was about to flip over again. The cyan pegasus put her hoof between Scootaloo and the ground however; and slowly lifted her up into a more stable state.
‘’Thanks, Rainbow Dash…’’ the filly said, though she didn’t really mean it. She turned her eyes away from the pegasus, staring at the ground.
‘’I already told you, there’s no need to prove yourself to me. What matters right now is that we try to locate ourselves and start moving homewards. We can’t have ourselves get slowed down by small things.’’
Too late did she realise what magnitude that last sentence held to the orange filly. She could see her ears droop, along with the rest of her body cringing slightly.
‘’I didn’t mean it that way Scoot, I didn’t mean to say…’’
‘’I’m slowing us down…’’
‘’No, that’s not what I was implying at all… I just ment…’’
‘’I know what you ment. Let’s just go,’’ Scootaloo said with an agitated tone to her voice.
They walked, rather they limped, silently for some time. Rainbow Dash had concluded they had to go this way, judging by the angle of the rays of light which penetrated the thick canopy of the forest. The ground on which they walked was covered with thick green and brown overgrowth, slowing them down and making every step feel as if they were climbing an incredibly steep mountain. The trees around them were extremely thick. They were covered in white and green mosses, their actual colours concealed behind the parasites. The trees rose for what seemed to be at least sixty feet into the air, where they created a thick coverage of leaves, blocking most of Celestia’s sun’s light. The few shafts that did manage to get past the canopy quickly lost their strength as they passed through the humid air.
After they had been walking for what had felt like miles, Rainbow Dash decided to stop travelling for the day and take a rest in the clearing they had just happened to stumble upon. The pegasus reckoned these places had to be limited in a place as old as the Everfree Forest; and she cherished the feeling of solid ground underneath her hooves. Behind her, Scootaloo was stumbling out of the rows of trees, drawing in large breaths every few seconds to try to get her heartbeat back to a normal pace.
‘’I could’ve… gone on… a lot longer,’’ she said in between gasps, trying to present herself to her idol in a way that would radiate strength.
‘’For the hundredth time: you don’t have to prove yourself to me. Let’s just lie down here and rest up. We’ll need some sleep if we want to keep moving every day.’’
Scootaloo sighed. As much as she hated to admit it, she felt tired. She didn’t want to show it though; and thus she tried to hold up her façade of being inexhaustible.
Throughout the hike, her left front leg had grown more and more stiff. It felt like a block of wood hanging from her body, attached with a tight rope. When she tried to lie down, she couldn’t get the leg to bend to her will. She found that she could only sway it back and forth; and even doing just that triggered the feeling of a really nasty sting in the shoulder joint. She had no choice but to lay down on her right side and avoid putting any kind of pressure on the leg.
Rainbow Dash was facing a similar problem. Her left wing was bent in weird twists onto her back, crimson streaks having doused the normally cyan feathers. The limb was bent onto her back from the joint which held it attached to her body. She could actually lie down on her left side without the wing touching the ground.
This, somewhat conveniently, enabled her to keep her broken right hind leg off the ground, which was no longer feeling as if it were ablaze. The itching was still there, however. When she looked back at the leg, it seemed to have a weird colouring on the flesh around the spot where she could feel the broken bone. It looked very nasty, revolting even, so she quickly turned her head away and tried to remove the thought from her mind.
‘’It’s going to be a long night,’’ she thought to herself, trying to get a somewhat comfortable position to sleep in. It didn’t take her too long to get a position she felt would do for the night; and after that, exhausted from the pair’s travelling for that day, she was gripped by the tendrils of sleep, dragging her off into the night.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As she trotted through the streets of Ponyville, the orange mare seemed to be looking all around her, as if she was observing every little thing in the town, much like a newcomer would gaze upon everything as if it were a miracle. The earthpony however, wasn’t new. Truth be far from it. She was looking for somepony; and she way haybent on finding her.
‘’Now where is that lazy hay eatin’…’’
‘’Hey there Applejack! Ah was wonderin’ if ya could help me out with somethin’?’’
The mare was thrown out of her thoughts by the sudden question asked by the yellow filly in front of her. She had to compose herself for a moment before being able to let the question sink in and think of an answer to give.
‘’Well, ah was kind of busy, but ah guess ah can spare a moment. What’s the problem then, Applebloom?’’
‘’Well, ah was kind of lookin’ fer Scootaloo, ta umm… tell her about… that thing we talked about, but ah haven’t been able ta find her anywhere! Ah was wonderin’ if ya had seen her, or maybe even know where she is?’’ The filly stared at her sister with a hopeful smile, praying her sister would know something about the other filly’s whereabouts.
‘’Ah’m sorry, but ah haven’t seen yer li’l friend, nor have ah talked ta anypony who does. But this is a weird coincidence, ah’ve been tryin’ ta find somepony all day as well, but ah haven’t been able ta locate her yet.’’
‘’Who were ya lookin’ fer then?’’
‘’Well, ah was tryin’ ta find Rainbow Dash. She’d agreed ta help me out on the farm today but when ah waited fer her ta show up this mornin’, she didn’t come. Ah’m thinkin’ she just flew off with those wings of her as usual, avoidin’ any work no matter the cost.’’ The mare couldn’t help but grin a little at the thought, it was typical Rainbow Dash behaviour, and she felt like she reconstructed the happenings spot-on.
‘’Well this is strange… Scootaloo said somethin’ about goin’ ta watch Rainbow Dash perform new tricks. They were supposed to be doin’ that yesterday. Shouldn’t they’ve made it back by now?’’
‘’Don’t worry about it, ah’m sure Rainbow is just hidin’ from her responsibilities, as usual; and ah bet Scootaloo is somewhere around town. Hay, she might even be back at your Cutiemark Crusader Clubhouse!’’
‘’Umm, Applejack, we quit crusadin’ a long time ago, when Sweetie Belle left to Manehattan remember?’’
Applebloom still recalled the event as if it happened only yesterday. When Sweetie Belle discovered her special talent, which had turned out to be performing, she got an offer from a well-known producer to travel to Manehattan and help her become famous.
It took a lot of thinking and discussing it with her two best friends, but in the end she had decided to take off and live a city life.
With the third embodiment of their Crusader group gone, Scootaloo and Applebloom had grown closer and closer, haybent to never lose their friendship. They ended up spending almost every waking hour together; until some time ago, Scootaloo had decided to tell Applebloom how she felt about her. The yellow filly didn’t know how to react to the revelation, so she simply ran off without answering.
Applebloom shook her head a few times, letting go of the memories, for the time being at least, as her mind focused on her sister for a moment when Applejack continued talking.
‘’But ah see Scootaloo in and around that place all the time when ah’m applebuckin’ in the evenin’.’’
‘’That’s weird… Why would Scootaloo be stayin’ at the old clubhouse, there’s nothin’ there. We cleared it all up when we had our last meetin’…’’ The filly was rudely interrupted on her thoughts as her sister resumed her talk.
‘’Anyway, ah’m sure they’re both just dandy. Nothin’ ta worry about.’’
‘’Ah don’t know… Somethin’ just feels off. Let’s just go check outside Ponyville in the fields where they were goin’ ta practice, alright? Just ta be sure?’’
The filly noticed that her sister was not going to buy it, so she did the only thing she could to make her listen. She sniffed loudly a few times and stared at the mare with massive puppy dog eyes. Not even Applejack was immune to those eyes; and it wasn’t before long that she started losing her cool. Her mouth curled a little; and at that moment, Applebloom knew she had her. Soon after, the earthpony gave in to the filly.
‘’Oh alright then. Ah’ll come with ya just ta prove that there’s nothin’ wrong, just please stop with the eyes,’’ The orange mare said with a slight reluctance emanating from her voice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
‘’Scootaloo…’’
The filly gazed around, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. It had sounded familiar to her, but she couldn’t quite place it yet. As she peered into every direction, she noticed something strange about one of the shadows on the ground. It seemed to have a shape unlike any of the others, even though there was no one there.
Suddenly, the shadow rose up from the ground, creating an image Scootaloo knew all too well. The image before her was small, about the same height she herself was. A tail arched up before plummeting straight down, ending in a knot with a hairband around it. Her mane was flat, but decorated with a bow. The image, however, was grey; colourless; lifeless. Her face was straight, not a single emotion was showing through it.
‘’You’re weak.’’
Scootaloo was surprised by the sudden words spoken by the other filly, she wanted to take a few steps away from the grey image, but realized she was still lying on the ground.
‘’What did you say?’’
‘’You heard me. You’re just a weak pony. You can’t bring yourself to explain yourself to me. Hay, you can’t even get up on your own. You’re weak.’’
‘’That’s not true, I- I could get up anytime I wanted to!’’
Deciding to add deeds to the words she spoke, she pulled her three normally functioning hooves underneath herself and attempted to push herself up like she had tried it ever since the crash had happened. Just as she lifted her torso off the ground, she toppled over again, leaving her lying down once more.
The shadowed image of Applebloom let out a hateful laugh, enjoying the orange filly’s failure.
‘’See? You can’t get up. You’re not strong enough. How do you think you will ever get the strength to explain yourself to me, if you can’t even get up on your own? You’re not worth it.’’
The grey image began to fade away into the ground, starting to be reduced to a two-dimensional shadow once again. As her body sunk, she was pulled away, back into the lines of trees. She then vanished completely, leaving nothing but a regular shadow.
‘’I can get up on my own!’’ Scootaloo yelled.
‘’I can get the courage to talk to Applebloom again!’’
The filly’s ears drooped as she yelled out into the darkness, full well knowing she wasn’t capable of doing either of the two at the current time. As she laid her head to rest onto her right front hoof, she only wanted the thoughts to leave her alone. She just wanted to rest without worrying about something all the time. She just wanted to be stronger.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They found themselves just outside Ponyville not too long after deciding to start looking for the seemingly missing mare and filly. Applebloom was leading the way, her sister simply following her hoofsteps, as they proceeded towards the large clearing not too far out of town.
Their eyes fell upon the Everfree Forest, towering out of the otherwise flat valley. The dark woods were contrasting with the much brighter surrounding scenery, creating a magnificent view of the valley. The two ponies couldn’t be bothered to stand still and observe it though. Instead they moved with a steady pace up onto a large hill, which would hopefully provide them with an unobstructed view.
Applebloom soon noticed something lying at the top of the mound of earth, something which could only belong to one pony. The rectangular shaped board with rounded off edges, a T-shaped handlebar at one end and four wheels, two just underneath the handlebar; and the other two on the other end.
‘’Look sis! It’s Scootaloo’s scooter!’’ the filly frantically said as she rushed over towards the scooter lying sideways on the grass on the hilltop.
‘’So? What does that have to do with what we’re currently doin’? She could’ve just left it here when she went ta do somethin’ else.’’
‘’No Applejack, she never goes anywhere without it. Somethin’ must’ve happened, somethin’ important enough fer her to leave her scooter behind!’’
The filly started scouring the area. The unobstructed view, as provided by the hill, now proved to be an invaluable resource of information, as the yellow coated filly’s eyes fell upon something in the distance.
She was looking in the direction of the forest, where she had let her eyes run along the canopy, which was decently visible because of their height, when she only barely spotted something out of the ordinary. It was so far away that she had to squint her eyes towards being nearly closed, but she could make out the abnormality nonetheless.
Her vision had fallen onto a specific part of the canopy, where a rather large part appeared to be missing. It was usual for a forest to have clearings, of course; but this part was different. The area of the cleared leaves was slightly lighter coloured than the others, indicating the sun’s light was being reflected off before even going through. It was what made it stand out to the naked eye in the first place. This would mean there were branches there; and when there were branches, that ment it was not a clearing.
She didn’t even clearly recall why she knew all this, but she could vaguely remember something being said in school about colours being affected by the way light was being reflected. She didn’t feel like pondering about the ‘why’ right now, though. Instead, she quickly started harassing her sister with what she believed she saw.
‘’Applejack! Look! Over there!’’ she said while frantically hopping and sprinting around her older sister, trying to grab her attention.
‘’Now hold still fer just a second, alright? What am ah supposed ta see?’’
‘’Well look over there!’’ the filly said with her right hoof raised stiff and pointing towards the faraway spot she had noticed moments ago.
‘’Would ya mind tellin’ me what’s wrong with it? Ah can’t even see it clearly but it appears ta be just a clearin’. There are many of those in a forest, Applebloom,’’ she said with a faint tone of annoyance in her voice.
The filly didn’t like the way her sister belittled her statement; and thus she proceeded with explaining why she felt it was different from the rest of the forest. When she got close to ending her explanation, Applejack had opened her saddlebag, which she seemed to always carry with her no matter where she went, and extracted a small object.
It looked somewhat like the telescopes Twilight had shown them in her books, the big devices used by ponies to look at the stars as if you were closer. This object had a stunning resemblance, except that it was much, much smaller. It had two compartments; one larger than the other, sliding on top of the smaller part. The small part ended in something which had the shape of an eye, as if you were supposed to look through it. The large part had a piece of clear glass at the end.
‘’Umm… Sis? Why do ah have this feelin’ yer not even listenin’ ta me?’’
‘’Oh ah was listenin’ Applebloom. In fact, I do think your explanation makes sense. Ah just feel like confirmin’ what you’ve been tellin’. Ya see, this here thingy is somethin’ Twilight made not too long ago. It’s supposed ta make everythin’ look as if it’s close by. Ah guess now is a good time ta try it.’’
She put the small end of the item close to her eye; careful not to poke it in. She gingerly wielded the tool, but it was good enough. She soon found the spot which Applebloom had pointed out earlier; and with her now enhanced view, she was able to clearly distinguish the area from the rest of the forest.
It was indeed not a clearing, just like her little sister had said, but what she saw instead made her heart almost skip a beat. The branches, which she was expecting to see, were mostly damaged, or completely snapped off. The branches were broken in a very unusual way as well. It looked as if something had collided with the canopy and taken down a part of it with itself.
Applejack didn’t waste any additional time staring at the location. She felt she knew more than enough. After quickly putting the monocular back into her saddlebag; she quickly started galloping towards her home, quickly shouting back at her sister that ‘she’d be back soon’ and ‘she was just going to pack some supplies for a long trip’.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rainbow Dash woke to the faint sound of an object colliding with the ground, over and over. As she opened her eyes, it took little adjusting to the soft lighting in the forest before she could see clearly. After that it didn’t take much time for her to find the cause of this noise. The filly in front of her was continuously moving her legs up underneath herself, then pushing up, only to tumble back to the ground mere moments after due to her lack of balance with just three legs. She seemed haybent on succeeding though, so she kept on trying. Bruises had started to form around the areas of her body which she fell on a lot during this practise; some of her coat had been scraped off by the grainy soil as well. As she kept on trying, small cuts started to open up on her skin, slowly causing her orange coat to turn crimson red. Rainbow Dash decided to walk up to her.
‘’Scootaloo, what are you doing?’’
‘’Isn’t it obvious? I’m trying to get up!’’
‘’But why don’t you just use some object to lean onto to make it easier?’’
‘’I can’t, Rainbow Dash. I just can’t. I have to do this.’’
‘’No you don’t, you can just do it in a different way, an easier way.’’
‘’No, that just won’t do. I have to do it like this, I just have to!’’
Suddenly, a memory flashed through the cyan pegasus’ mind. A living room. On one side stood two older ponies, a blue colt, and a white mare. On the other side stood a rainbow maned filly. They were having an argument. The filly wanted to go to flight school. She had to; that’s what she told her parents. But they insisted she would stay home and grow up to take over her parent’s shop. A lot of yelling seemed to be going on. Then, the scene changed. The filly had a tiny bag on her right flank, stuffed with precious belongings and some food. She was running. Behind her stood a small house, her family’s house. She was running; and not planning on ever going back. The memory faded. Rainbow Dash found herself back in the present, with the trying filly in front of her.
‘’Okay. Keep trying then,’’ she said with a much more understanding tone.
‘’Y-you mean it?’’ Scootaloo asked as she looked up towards her idol’s face, trying to spot if she was lying or something of the likes.
‘’Yes. If you feel that you have to do this, then you should go ahead and keep trying. I won’t stop you. Just keep in mind you can ask for help at any time.’’
Many minutes passed. There was a complete silence, almost deathly, between the two ponies; even the forest wasn’t making a single sound. The only sound which kept breaking the silence was the noise of the small pegasus falling onto the ground for many repeated times. But she didn’t give up. She kept pulling herself together after every mistake. Adjusting her tactic ever so slightly with every passing fall. Until finally…
‘’I DID IT!’’ Scootaloo yelled out as she had finally managed to get up, all by herself, and balance out after getting up as well. A wide smile seemed to be welded onto her face.
Rainbow Dash had been watching the filly as she progressed through the learning stages. She had watched her fall down so many times, only to see her get back up and try over and over again. She couldn’t help but smile back at her as she had finally managed it all.
‘’Well good job Scoot! All by yourself as well!’’ she said as she got up and limped over towards the filly, embracing her in a hug after she had reached her. Scootaloo gladly participated, leaning into her idol as she let the joyful moment vanquish every sad or angry thought she had had before.
‘’Well what do you have to say about that?’’ she thought to herself, a wide grin forming on her face as she imagined the grey image’s face now that she had proven it wrong.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It fell from the sky. What little light there was, was being fractured into every single colour of the rainbow. As it passed further down, it eventually collided with a green surface. The surface wasn’t completely flat and thus it kept voyaging ever downwards. It was as if travelling through a maze, carefully having to pick its route as to prevent being stopped in its tracks.
Left; right; left; left; forward; right….
Just as it seemed to never end, an opening revealed itself, allowing it to proceed with its destined travel towards the ground. It fell down, then suddenly collided with a multi-coloured object just mere feet away from the ground. As the drop of water touched the rainbow maned pony, it drenched her coat, adding more moisture to the already doused fur.
They had been walking through the rain for several hours, but it had felt like it were several days. At first the leaves on the trees had prevented the rain from breaking through, but as the downpour continued, even the oldest and thickest of trees gave in to the torrential powers. The already tough terrain had only gotten even tougher by the soaking touches of the water. It sapped more and more strength from the two ponies with every step they took; and it didn’t look like it would stop raining anytime soon.
‘’We’ve been walking for hours now… I’m beat… Perhaps I should ask her if we can take a break; it would be nice to rest a bit after walking for so long…’’
‘’Rainbow Dash?’’
The pegasus shook her head a little as she heard her name being called out from behind. As she turned her head around and looked, she could see the orange filly looking at her with a tired gaze. She had broad dark rings around her eyes, appeared to be shaking on her hooves and seemed to be having trouble keeping her head from dipping down out of fatigue.
‘’What… Umm… whatisit Scootaloo?’’ She seemed to have a surprising difficulty to find words and pronunciate them accordingly afterwards. They were poorly articulated as well; more or less creating one slur of sound instead of full sentences.
‘’Did she just shake her head again? She’s done that almost every time I asked something now… As if she’s trying to focus herself on what I ask?... But I only called her name this time… That’s not hard to understand; right?’’
‘’C-can we rest for a bit? I’m really tired and I don’t think I can walk much further,’’ the filly said with a somewhat begging expression on her face as she asked the cyan mare.
‘’There it is again; as if she’s having trouble taking in what I tell her...’’
‘’Umm… Alright, Scootaloo; let’s just… Umm… lookfora somewhat clearspot then.’’
‘’It’s probably just because she is tired as well; she’s been walking a bit oddly for some time now anyway. A bit of rest would be good for both of us.’’
They spent the next several minutes trying to find a suited sleeping place, which was easier said than done for the two ponies. The forest was thickly grown, only leaving minuscule free spots of ground every few feet, but none of which would be any good, let alone be large enough, to sleep on.
‘’This looks… Umm… okay,’’ Rainbow Dash said as she let her gaze move across the small clearing they had just stumbled upon.
It wasn’t much, but at least the ground was clear from any overgrowth and it was more than large enough to lie down on. The rain wasn’t even permeating as much as she had expected from a clearing, as the trees which stood around it had their leaves stretch out all the way across it, creating a blanket in the air; holding back a large portion of the torrent.
Scootaloo happily let herself plummet down onto the soil, not even having the strength to say goodnight to Rainbow Dash. She fell asleep almost instantly, seemingly not being bothered by the light streams of water running down on top of her.
The other mare soon followed the filly’s example, lying down and mostly trying to quickly fall asleep. She soon got accustomed to the streams of water sprinkling on her fur; and she managed to fall asleep not too long after.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was still dark when Scootaloo woke up. She didn’t know whether it was because of the trees blocking any light, or if it simply was nighttime still. The rain hadn’t stopped either, still causing streams of water to fall down from the dark green canopy above her head. As the water fell down, it created a tiny well in the ground on impact. This process had been going on for hours now, so the holes were starting to somewhat deepen.
As Scootaloo’s eyes got acquainted with the still dark surroundings, she began to make out the shapes of the environment once more. Looking around, her gaze stopped when she came across what looked to be the silhouette of another pony, lying down on the ground, seemingly not moving.
‘’I should probably wake Rainbow Dash up,’’ The filly thought as she trotted over in the direction of the pegasus.
‘’Rainbow Dash?’’
No response came. The body lay there, not showing any visible signs of recognition of the filly’s call.
‘’Rainbow? Come on Rainbow Dash… Wake up…’’
Scootaloo began poking the pony with her front legs. As she tried to move her left front leg, she noticed the numbness had spread from just the leg all the way into the shoulder joint, as well as parts of her chest and even the base of her neck felt numb. She decided to use her right front leg instead, poking the body of the pegasus before her as she tried to get any sign that the mare had heard her. Slowly, the strange behaviour from the past hours began to fall into place in the filly’s mind.
‘’Come on… Please wake up… We- we’ve got to go home…’’ Tears began to form in Scootaloo’s bloodshot eyes, rolling down her cheeks; after which they dropped down through the air until they hit the already moist dirt beneath her hooves.
‘’Somepony help!’’ she began to shout sporadically, not wanting to accept what appeared to be unfolding in front of her.
‘’Anypony!...
Please help…’’