12 - Put It into a Song
When I approached our clubhouse, I noticed a lit up hoof-lighter. Scootaloo crouched beside it.
“Why’d ya’ even bring it here?” Apple Bloom yelled. “What if you burned down our tree house?”
Scootaloo lay on the ground, poking at the grass with a forehoof. “We couldn’t have proper picnics here before, and now we can. Fire is really cool for all sorts of things! Do you want to grill marshmallows? You need fire for that! Wanna burn trash and stuff? Fire! The possibilities are endless.” She shoved a hoof through the flame then quickly jerked it back. Her ears shot up at the sizzling sounds. “Ouch… Besides, I didn't bring it anywhere near the house, so you can just stop your neighing.”
“What's going on?” I asked, approaching them.
“This hothead brought a lighter to our clubhouse.”
“Ugh! I'm turning it off, okay?” Scootaloo rolled on her hooves and lazily pressed on the pedal with a foreleg. The flame from the lighter ceased.
“Anyway,” My idea was more important than what they had going on, so I deemed their argument concluded. “The school talent show is coming soon.” I proclaimed. “Maybe we can do even better this year. We'll have to make it even more epic than the last time we competed, just… with less breaking.”
“Are we going to sing again?” Scootaloo raised an eyebrow.
“That's a good suggestion!” I nodded at her. “Let's all write down a new song and then we can compare and see what we have.”
I ran up the ramp to get some writing equipment. It was stashed in the saddlebag near the door. Probably not so much to be at hoof’s length if anypony needed it, but more because those bums were too lazy to tidy up the place.
I heard Scootaloo’s loud sighing. “I hate this part!” she said.
With the saddlebag in my mouth, I trotted down the ramp. I drew out a piece of paper, a quill and ink one by one and put them in front of her. As I lay the saddlebag before Apple Bloom, we both took out our writing gear. “Um, did anypony even hear of a composer cutie mark before?”
“There’s the cello playing mare in Ponyville with a note for her cutie mark.” Scootaloo said.
“Octavia!” Apple Bloom interjected. “But she might have gotten it just for playin’ well.”
“I doubt that.” Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Her music is as boring as detention. I can’t imagine how DJ Pon3 can even put up with her.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I broke their useless chatter. “I love making new songs, and that’s all that counts!” My voice rose as I looked at them. “Get ready! Get set! Compose!”
I dunked my quill in an ink and placed it on top of my white sheet of paper. I needed to write something epic. The rhymes would come to me. They always had. I wondered if I could be related to zebras, but the still-blank paper in front of me convinced me otherwise. Distracting me with myself was not the way to write it. I was good at rhyming, but clearly I was no zebra. Relaxing my mind was the key! The words from within would only start coming if I let my inspiration overflow me. I closed my eyes.
My eyes opened. In front of me was a piece of paper. Fully written. I've never been so overflowed with my inner guidance to actually lose time before.
I looked about to see how long I was out. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom had their head bowed above the papers, looking at them with blank stares. They clearly weren’t writing anymore. Perhaps they were just revising their work. It was better to do that together, so I decided to call it quits.
“Okay! Time's up. Let's hear it. Apple Bloom, what do you have?”
She stood up and recited.
Cutie mark crusaders on the run
We joined you here to have some fun
She paused. I thought she was going for a dramatic effect, but when the silence stretched for too long I intervened. “What else?”
She bit her lip and looked up at me, shrugging her shoulders. “That's all I got…”
“Scootaloo, your turn.”
She lifted her wrinkled paper and recited:
We are
It wasn’t like her to stutter. I tried to help her move on. “We are…”
“I think it's a good start,” she said.
“We are?” I raised an eyebrow while I gazed at her. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “We just need to fill in the rest…” After some uncomfortable silence, she threw the paper on the ground. “Well, what do you have, Sweetie Belle?”
“Just a little something...” I sat on my rump. With my snout, I laid the paper on both forehooves. I cleared my throat to out any crackles of my voice before the recite, “Ahem!”
“It's an adventure song!” I proclaimed when I looked up at them from the piece I apparently wrote.
They gazed at me with mouths ajar and eyes widespread. Scootaloo hid behind Apple Bloom.
When my eyes connected with Scootaloo’s, she stood up on all four legs and hesitantly stepped by Apple Bloom's side. Her muscles tensed ever more. Then, she clenched her teeth and took a few steps back, hiding behind the yellow plot again. Her body trembled.
I looked around, but there was nothing scary anywhere. They were acting really weird.
Apple Bloom looked at her. “I'll hold down the offender, you grab the paper!”
“Whaa—” Apple Bloom's body slammed into me, and my song flew in the air. I hit the ground with my back.
Luckily, Scootaloo caught the paper before it fell in the mud.
I thanked her in my mind for saving my life’s work. It made no sense to me why Apple Bloom got so offensive. I thought my song was pretty good. At least it was a bit longer than what she had written. That alone should count for something. Even Twilight kept saying that size matters in all things. Perhaps the simple-minded Earth pony was just jealous of my song. “What’s the big idea, Apple Bloom?”
She overshadowed the sun, and her legs surrounded me from all sides. Her gaze shifted to Scootaloo. “Burn it! Burn it with fire! I’m not sure how long I can hold her down.”
“Why would you—” I tried to move her with my legs, but she held stiff. “It's merely a draft. If there's something wrong with the song, I can fix it. Just tell me which part you didn't like.”
“It's evil!! All of it!” Apple Bloom growled at me. Saliva seeped from the corners of her mouth.
Scootaloo turned on the lighter. She held my song in her snout above it.
I yelled at her, “I put my soul into that!”
The paper smoldered a little. Just before it caught fire Scootaloo jerked her head away from the hurtful inferno and laid the paper on the ground.
My sigh of relief was disrupted by a tremor of a hoof impacting the ground. When I looked forth at Scootaloo, I saw two piercing eyes staring back at me
“It has life-taking in it...” She wiped her eyes with a hoof then crouched down as she spread all four legs. “Not cool!” The paper was back in her snout again!.
I stretched a forehoof between Apple Bloom's legs toward Scootaloo. “Don't do it, please!”
“It's evil!” Apple Bloom snarled at me then turned to the pyromancer. “Burn it! Burn it to ashes!”
It caught fire, but merely the sides were kindling. There was still some hope of saving it. Pushing through Apple Bloom’s legs, I tried to force my way to my beautiful song and rescue it from their hurtful hooves.
Apple Bloom bent all four legs and laid on me with her weight. She pushed her nozzle closer to my ear and patronizingly whispered to me. “Sorry, Sweetie Belle, but it needs to be destroyed! We’re doing it for you.”
Pieces of burned paper floated down. Scootaloo let go of the last one. The only remaining proof of my effort burned as it swayed in the air. Only a few charred strata reached the ground. Black smoke rose from them as they smoldered.
The bully jumped off me and galloped to the remains of my masterpiece. She whipped the lighter away with a tail, not even bothering to turn it off. All four of her hooves slid across the ground, burying the ashes under the pile of dirt.
Scootaloo rushed to turn off the lighter. She proceeded to spit on Apple Bloom’s kindling tail. When that didn’t help, she trampled over it with both forehooves. “I think we’re good now.” After one more grind with a forehoof on the red tail, her eyes pierced me. “Why’d you write about bad things? Somepony could get offended, or worse: triggered. Look what you did to Apple Bloom’s tail with your songwriting!”
I just lay there on the ground. There was nothing to fight for anymore. Apple Bloom glared at me. “Grandma and Applejack warned me that it's evil just thinking about—lifetaking.” She pointed to the grave pile that she had accumulated with her hooves. “We saved you from the bad content, Sweetie Belle.” She pulled her tail from the trapping hooves and thumped toward me.
“I promise not to tell anypony what you wrote,” Scootaloo said.
“I won’t tell anypony, either.” Apple Bloom extended forth a hoof to help me get up. “Just—don't do something bad like that again. Ponies already think you're a bad influence on us.”
I kicked the offered hoof away and stood up on my own. “Who does?”
Scootaloo sighed. “Who doesn't…” She looked away into a distance.
“Applejack went as far as sayin’ I should stop seeing ya’.” Apple Bloom still held the hoof in the air, clenching it to her body. I hoped it hurt her bad after what she did to my art piece. “But you're my friend, and my sis’ has no right to tell me who I can and can’t hang out with.”
“You really should lay back a bit, Sweetie Belle,” Scootaloo said. “Since the horn incident, everypony is keeping away from you. They’re afraid you'll pull a prank on them, too.” She supported her head with a hoof. “How’d you do that, anyway? The thing with the disappearing horn. How can you hide a big thing like that? Did you comb your hair over it?”
If I told them the truth, they might get worked up again. If they thought I was also evil, they might try to burn me, as well. “I don't want to talk about it.”
“We understand.” Apple Bloom nodded. “It's best if you don't mention it to anypony. Maybe they'll forget about it eventually. And we should also try to forget about this whole catastrophe in the making! I'm scrapping the school play idea altogether.” Snickering, she looked at Scootaloo. “Unless we go with your masterpiece.”
Scootaloo snorted and hoofed at the ground. “It was a good start!”
Apple Bloom thumped with a hoof. “Do ya’ want Sweetie Belle to fill out the rest?” She smirked. “I didn't think so. It’s best if we go back to brainstorming.”
I turned around, teeth clenched. Another one of my ideas—shut down.
“Or we could just call it a day...” I sighed. My body rose and stiffened. All four legs just moved by themselves, taking me along for the ride. The isolation of my room called for me. I was losing my composure, and nothing short of hugging a pillow could bring me back to my comfort zone.
“Well, goodbye to you, too,” Scootaloo murmured after me.
“Sweetie Belle, don’t be like that,” Apple Bloom remarked. “We don’t hate you or your songwriting; we just didn’t like the song you wrote.”
I kept on walking with a stiff face. My anger held back the tears that gathered in my eyes. Those two had no right to oppose me like that. I had been onto something with the song. It had resonated with me in some way. I felt connected to it on a deeper level, and those two robbed me of my upshot.
Despite wanting nothing more than to charge at them with full galloping speed, I kept myself back for the time. There was nothing to fight for anymore. I couldn’t work with ashes.
Don't forget to participate in the Comment section minigames when you're done reading this chapter.
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Comment section minigames for the Put It into a Song chapter of the story Sweetie Belle Gains a Soul (anypony can play them in the comment section of this story).
GAME 1
Does this story remind you of a song that you know? If yes, post it in the comments in the following format:
- Chapter of the story that this song is relevant to.
- A link or embedded Youtube video of it.
- Percentage of correlation (0% being an unrelated song, 100% being a song written exactly for this story).
- A reason why this song reminded you of this story or the excerpt of the lyrics.
Inspiration from Within — Correlation: 100% (Lyrics)
My plan is set in motion — Though time is not yet right
GAME 2
Record yourself reading this story aloud. Upload your mp3 to MLP: Audiobooks, for instance, and paste the link to your audio or video in the comments.
The reward: A spot in the author’s note of this chapter.
Edit: The winner is Deity of a Shadow with his Dramatic Youtube reading:
¡Wow! ¡That song makes it almost seem that Sombra possesses the reattached horn! Of course, surely her horn is not possessed.
9368092 Did you like the song?
9368185
Yes. I like the song you played and the song Sweetie Belle wrote.
9369135 Did you like it better than the previous one?
9369759
That is like comparing apples and oranges. I like them both.
9369894 I'm glad to hear it. I was actually afraid that they both sound too similar.
11805059 It's not slice of life anymore. The lines have been breached.