Pony Life

by JetWave Wavewind

Ch. 6

"Wake up lazy wings!" Ciderwash yelled as he pushed me out of bed onto the hard floor. "Oww.." I said, not wanting to get up. "C'mon Ive, y'all don't want to miss the train now do ya?" He said, causing me to rocket up. "It's already here?!" I asked, waking up on the spot.

"Yeah! And it leaves at noon!"

"Ah crap!!" I said as I bolted downstairs to meet Lemmy and Scootaloo. Thanks to Washys wake up call and our rush we said our goodbyes to the Apple Family and got to the station just in time to get our tickets before they stopped selling them. "Your train will be leaving in five minutes so I wouldn't go anywhere if I were you."

"Thank you sir." I said to the blue conductor pony behind the ticket both. "No problem, you kids have a safe trip." He said with a wave as we walked off.

Within five minutes we were in our seats on the train that led to Ponyville. Scootaloo was still tired from the day before, and being woken up earlier than your used to doesn't help very much; so she fell asleep as soon as we took our seats. Lemmy was sitting across from me looking out the window as the darkened trees went by, waiting to see the sun that we had been deprived of for so long.

I took this opportunity of stillness to investigate a jabbing that had been in my wing ever since I woke up. I unfolded my wing and a note of some kind fell out onto the seat. I tried to read it but the lighting inside the train was very dim and there wouldn't be any natural light for a while. So I tucked it back up in my wing to read later. I could've asked Lemmy if she could use her magic to make a light but she seemed to be lost in thought as she gazed out the window and I didn't know if this note was supposed to be a secret or not since I found it in the fold of my wing.

I decided to do as Lemmy and watch out the window since there wasn't really anything interesting inside the train car to look at. We had picked up a lot of speed since we left. Where the trees had dragged by across the window of the car before, they now zipped by so fast you could hardly tell what they were. "What do you think it'll be like in Ponyville?" Lemmy asked, snapping me out of my tree watching daze.

"I'm not sure. I hope it's as nice as Hollow Shades though." I said, looking over to Scootaloo when she let out a loud snore. She shuffled about in her sleep until she snuggled up to Lemmy and sighed in contentment. "Yeah, I-I actually would have liked to stay there.. If the sun ever shown that is." She said as she nuzzled the sleeping Scootaloo. "That was kinda a deal breaker for me too." I quipped.

As if on cue to our conversation, we were out of the forest and the sun shown down on us from it's place high up in the sky. The brightness almost burned from having been in the dark for so long but we adjusted to it quickly. Scootaloo on the other hoof, did not. "Ungh..." She moaned as she sat up, blinking tired eyes at us. "Who tuwned on da wights?" Me and Lemmy chuckled as she sat up.

"Mornin' Scoots, enjoying the sunshine?" I asked. "Huh..?" She said as she took in her surroundings and let out a gasp. "Why didn't chu guys tell me we were on da twain?!" She cried as she sprung up. "You were awake when we bought the tickets and boarded!" I said with a laugh as a loud speaker came on.

"Attention passengers, we will be making a brief stop in Canterlot to refuel within the hour so please take this opportunity to stretch your legs, wings, and whatever else you may have. Thank you for choosing Equestrian Express!" The voice said as it clicked off.

"Canterlot? The capital city of Equestria, Canterlot? One of the few cities bigger than Manehatten, Canterlot?" Lemmy said, starting to hyperventilate. I jumped over and sat down next to her and placed the wing that didn't have the note tucked away over her, causing her to squeak. "Don't worry, we don't have to get out if you don't want to." I said, letting her out of my wing once she started to calm down.

"Awww... but I wanted to twy flying!" Scootaloo whined. "I-it's ok, you two can go look around if you want... I'll just stay on the train." Lemmy said, not wanting Scootaloo to be disappointed. "You sure?" I asked.

"Yes, I'll be fine."

"Yay!!! Thank you Wemmy!" Scootaloo cheered as she gave Lemmy a big hug.

~<(^)>~

After awhile the train pulled into Canterlot train station and most of the ponies got out. I deposited the note on the seat across from Lemmy so I wouldn't loose it while I was out flying with Scoots before we left the train.

The platform was filled with ponies boarding and leaving the train when we stepped onto it. We had to squeeze our way past a lot of them that were gathered at the train before we could finally breathe. "Alright then Scoots, show me what ya got!" I said once we made it off the platform.

She tried flapping her wings but she wasn't moving. She started flapping harder and harder until she was finally a few inches off the ground but it was short lived when her wings wore out and she fell on her face. She looked like she was about to cry when I picked her up so I patted her back. "There there, it's ok. Not everypony even makes it off the ground on their first attempt to fly." I said as she started to sob quietly into my neck.

She looked up at me with teary eyes and I saw that she had scraped her snout when she fell on her face. "Well would you look at that, you got yourself some proof that you managed to get off the ground!" I said. She looked at me with a confused look and a sniffle.

"That Victory Mark right there on your snout!" I said as I pointed to the scrape. She recoiled when I accidentally poked it with my hoof. "Oops, sorry bout that.. But yeah, you've got bragging rights now! You can say that 'I'm Scootaloo, and I managed to get off the ground on my first try!'" I said in a fake macho voice that caused her to giggle in spite of herself. I smiled when I saw that she was starting to forget about the pain of not flying and the pain in her snout.

I noticed a stray cloud that was floating about ten feet above our heads and an idea came to mind. "You wanna see the sky from above instead of below?" I asked. She nodded her head slowly as a weak smile started to come to her face. I held her tightly in my hooves and took off for that cloud and got there just in time to sprawl out on it, "I really need to work out my wings if I'm ever going to be doing that again." I thought to myself as I panted.

After I caught my breath I saw that Scootaloo was looking out over the train station and downtown section of the city in amazement. "Pretty cool right?" I asked. She nodded her head vigorously, not wanting to take her eyes off the view that she had. "You ain't seen nothing yet." I said as I hopped off the cloud and flew under it. "Hold on."

And with that, I pushed the cloud up to twenty feet above the ground. Now you could see the train station and a even more of downtown Canterlot. "You like?" I asked. She was all the more amazed at what all she could see from this height. She nodded even more excitedly with a mile wide smile at being up so high. "And this isn't even-" I was cut off when I heard the warning whistle from the train saying that they were almost ready to go. "Oh uh, we gotta go Scoots!" I said as I grabbed her off the cloud and stopped flapping my wings as we started to free fall. I flapped my wings every few feet to slow our decent so we didn't end up with anything worse than a scraped snout when we hit ground.

We landed a little harder than I would've liked but didn't get anything worse than some jelly-legs for a second as we rushed to the platform just as the conductor was about to make the call that everypony was on. The train had just started moving when we got back to our seats and Lemmy grabbed us both in a hug. "What took you so long??" She asked, concern woven deep in her eyes.

"We lost track of time when I was showing Scoots how fun it was to be up in the sky." I explained. "It was so..! So..!" Scootaloo said, trying to find the right word. "Awesome?" I offered. "Awesome!! I got off da gwound on my fiwst twy! As you aweady saw," She said as she puffed her chest out in pride.

I chuckled when Lemmy was confused by what Scoots was talking about. "Her 'Victory Mark.'" I whispered, pointing to my own snout as Scoots continued. "And then Ivowy flew me up on a cloud and showed me da whole city befoe da twain whistled and we jumped off da cloud and wan back here!"

"Th-that sounds like a lot of fun." Lemmy said after Scootaloo finished. "Now lets go get your Victory Mark all cleaned up."

"Ok Wemmy." She said as her and Lemmy walked off towards the bathroom. I chuckled and sat down on the seat and stretched my wings. "That cloud sure made it easier to fly with Scoots today." I thought as I sprawled out in the seat.

Figuring that now was as good a time as any to see what that note was, I decided to read it. Only something was missing... The note. I got up and looked around in my seat, it wasn't there. I looked over to where Lemmy and Scootaloo had been sitting and underneath both seats, no note. I flew up for a minute to look around the car before the conductor told me to sit down, still there was nothing. Lemmy and Scootaloo came back from the bathroom and I decided to forget the note for now and watch out the window as the sun began to set behind the Canterlot mountain.

~<(^)>~

It was late in the evening when we got to Ponyville and Scootaloo had fallen asleep again. When we stepped out on the platform to Ponyville we realized we had overlooked an important detail. "Where are we going to sleep tonight?" Lemmy asked, her eyelids already starting to drop from want of sleep.

We didn't have enough bits left to rent a hotel room and almost everywhere we looked, the lights in everyponies house were already out for the night. We finally came to a building where the lights were still on. It was an old oak tree that had been hollowed out into a home. There was a sign out front but it was to dark to tell what was on it. I walked up to the door and knocked, hoping that somepony would answer. I was relieved of my worries when an elderly grey unicorn answered the door. "Oh dear, what have we here?" She asked with a voice as gentle as a summers breeze when she saw the three of us.

"W-we're sorry to disturb you at your home.." Lemmy said. "B-b-but would it be ok for us to s-stay the night here..? We just got into town today and...."

"Oh! Of course it would be ok dearies, come in, come in!" She said, beckoning us inside without another word on the matter. "Thank you very much miss..."

"Oh, just call me Miss Pages. Have a seat anywhere you like." We sat down at a table in the middle of the main room. The room was filled with books and there was a set of stairs that led up somewhere. "Here you go dearies, I'm sure you're hungry from your trip." Miss Pages said as she came back, levitating a tray of daffodil sandwiches over to the table. She had no Idea how right she was, it had been a long day and we hadn't had anything to eat at all during it. "Thank you Miss Pages!" I said as I grabbed a sandwich off the tray.

"Of course Deary! Oh, I'm sure you'd rather me be calling you by your actual name instead of just Deary all the time, what are your names?" She asked.

"My name is Ivory Blossom, this is Lemon Wedge, and the sleeping foal here is Scootaloo." I said as I wrapped my wing around Scootaloo.

"It's very nice to meet you three, where are you from?" She asked, taking on of the sandwiches for herself.

"M-manehatten." Lemmy said as she bit into her sandwich.

"Goodness! You three have had a very long trip!" She said, almost dropping the sandwich she held in her navy aura.

"You have no idea.." I said as I finished up my sandwich.

"Well you can tell me all about it in the morning, I'm sure you two are just as tuckered out as your little one there."

We finished of the sandwiches Miss Pages brought out for us and she showed us where we would be sleeping. "I'm afraid that one of the drawbacks to living in a library means that you don't have many guest rooms, so we'll have to make do with the two mattresses that I have for whenever I have friends from out of town over." She said as she brought the two mattresses up from the basement and went off to go get some sheets and pillows. I picked Scootaloo up off the hard floor and put her on the mattress next to me. "We finally made it.." Lemmy said with a smile, barely able to keep her eyes open.

"Yeah, we sure did.." I said, having much of the same problem as her. When Miss Pages came back she saw that both me and Lemmy had already passed out on our own mattresses. "Oh, the poor Dears.." She said with a sigh as she levetated us up off the mattresses and put us back down on after she had sheeted them and covered us each up with a blanket.