- ACT TWO - HOOVES ON THE GROUND - Chapter Nine: The Art of Subtlety
The End of Ponies
by shortskirtsandexplosions
Chapter Nine – The Art of Subtlety
Special thanks to Vimbert for Editing
Extra Special Thanks to Valhalla-Studios for Cover Art
“You will be sent to five months before the Cataclysm. It's important, Scootaloo, that you get a lay of the land in advance of the destruction of Equestria, so that in the present we may both compile all of the things that you have observed, so as to determine what was the cause of the horror.”
“But why bind me to Ms. Cheerilee?” The last pony asked. She stepped back and watched as her purple dragon companion moved several large bits of equipment with his iron-wrought limbs, making an open space across the floor of his cavernous laboratory. “She's sweet and all—But wouldn't she be the least likely pony in Equestria's past to have an answer to what happened? Why not just bind me to Princess Celestia so that I could talk directly to her and get this whole thing over with?”
“That would be an extremely solid solution.” Spike nodded, his violet neck pendant dangling, “If it was possible.” He brushed the rocky floor clean with a green-crested tail before producing a crystal vial of ashes from a nearby cabinet. Using nimble fingers, he started drawing an alchemic circle across the floor with the powdery dust. “Alas, though contacting Princess Celestia would certainly give us the best possible perspective on the eve of the Cataclysm, I cannot send you back in time bound directly to her soul.”
“Why not?” Scootaloo made a face as she watched the mystical designs take form under the dragon's careful motions. “I thought you said that the ponies you could bind me to were friends of yours! Didn't you brush tails with the Princess on multiple occasions while she mentored Twilight Sparkle back in Canterlot?”
“To think of Princess Celestia as a friend of mine is most humbling,” he said with a smile. “And such is undeniably true. But no matter how attuned I may have been with the Royal Alicorns of Canterlot, I would be a fool to think that I could in any way target the essence of a Goddess' soul. Even if I was the most powerful dragon that had ever lived, I would never be capable of binding any time-traveling creature to the life force of Celestia or Luna. Once a mortal, always a mortal; three hundred years of experience is but a pindrop, you see.”
“If you say so,” Scootaloo mumbled. She gulped and glanced briefly about the colorful instruments and chemicals that sparkled across the laboratory, feeling suddenly like she was stumbling before the plank of a very intimidating launchpad aimed into a sea of green fire. “But—still—Ms. Cheerilee? How do I expect a lone school teacher to help us out after I tell her that her whole world is going to die?”
“You don't.”
Scootaloo's scarlet eyes bugged. “I don't?!”
“Scootaloo, you are going back to be an observer. It is you who must find out about the future, not them.”
“You're joking!” Her face contorted as she backtrotted in disbelief. “Spike, if you and I are gonna be serious about unearthing the mystery of the Cataclysm, we're gonna need all the help we can get! And I can't do diddly squat if I pretend like nothing is going to happen to all the ponies whom I meet in the past!”
“The fact that you know what is going to happen is certainly sufficient enough for you to accomplish your tasks, child,” Spike said, finishing the circle and sprinkling the remaining dust back into his crystal vial. “But where your knowledge is an asset to you, I am afraid it will only be a deterrent to them. If you arrive back in time as a harbinger of doom, you will not scrounge up information. You will only arouse panic.”
“But maybe that's the key!” Scootaloo's eyes glistened as she leaned up towards him. “Spike, if we tell everyone what happens, maybe we could—”
“—stop something that will transpire anyways, as is in accordance with the immutable flow of time?” He stared deeply at her, his eyes hanging like cold emeralds.
She deflated, scruffing at the rocky floor with a wayward hoof. “But... Something has to be done, Spike. This... This just doesn't feel right. There's so much pretense about what you're sending me in the past to do. You know, I've done a lot of harsh things in the Wasteland to survive. I've lied to many soulless creatures and I've cheated several mercenaries who I knew would only swindle me in the future.” She paused for a moment, gulping. Her scarlet eyes danced left and right, then calmed as she further, said, “But in a land like Equestria, all I will find are ponies. And to me, any pony is a friend. I don't think I can lie to friends like I've attempted to manipulate everything else within leg's distance of these Wastes.”
“I'm sending you back in the past, Scootaloo, because I know that you are resourceful, intelligent, and brave. But more than any of those attributes, there is one quality that you must master in order to succeed in your newest endeavor.”
“And what is that, pray tell?”
“Subtlety.”
She frowned at him. “I don't do 'subtle.'”
“Hrmmm...What a surprise.” He half-chuckled, his iron nostrils fuming playfully. “Well, I suggest you stretch yourself in that area, old friend. Because where you are about to go, subtlety is richer than oxygen. Once you've landed, I suggest you take many long, even breaths before you so much as talk to a single pony.”
“Just h-how long am I going to be there?” Scootaloo asked with a brief bout of nervousness.
“I've stored up enough green flame in my enchanted fire glands to send you back for a period of five to seven days.” Spike counted his clawed fingers for emphasis. “To stay anchored in the past longer than a week is beyond the range that I am capable of giving you. Also, remember: because you'll be bound to Cheerilee, it is important that you do not leave more than forty meters from her position—Or else your soul will no longer be anchored to its source in the past.”
“What happens either way?” Scootaloo blinked. “If the seven days run out or if I walk 'out of bounds' of the teacher?” She gulped, “D-do I die in a puff of smoke?”
“If you call speedily returning to this laboratory in the presence of my wholesome company 'deadly,' then certainly!” The elder dragon chuckled. “Fear not, Scootaloo. As you are not truly your physical self in the past, you will be oblivious to pain, hunger, and even exhaustion. Your manifested soul-self will be akin to a projection of your essence—The only ones who will think that you are real are those in the past who observe you. So try and make a good first impression.”
“B-but what if they recognize me?” She asked, suddenly wincing.
“I seriously doubt you'll have to worry about that,” Spike stated matter-of-factly. “You'll hardly resemble your past self. For that matter, you'll hardly resemble anypony at all—Heheh—Ahem...” His face glinted at her in a sudden sheen of melancholy. “And in speaking of your past self...”
The mare stared up at him forlornly.
He said, “Though we both know that bumping into your foalish copy will hardly have an effect on the immutable passage of time, I would still advise against it. Meeting a doppleganger from the past is... existentially exhausting, to say the least.”
“I-I'll take your word for it,” she said in a dry voice. “I really have no intention of doing that anyways,” she murmured, turned, and trotted firmly into the circle. “Now send my butt back already!”
“Very well,” he nodded his green crested head, stepped around her, and perched on a mound of gemstones flanking the alchemic circles. “Remember, Scootaloo, subtlety.” He gestured as his shadow rested over her. “Subtlety is the key to success—”
“Yeah yeah—I get the picture—”
“And patience, Scootaloo. If you expect to be there as long as my flames permit, then you will make no progress by rushing things. Once you've arrived back in time, try not to make any harsh decisions. Be calm, be serene, be friendly, or just be silent if you wish. Most of all, watch, listen, observe. And once you've made contact with Cheerilee or any of our other acquaintances, be discreet with them, be courteous, and after you have won their trust—Then and only then may you attempt to proceed higher among the Equestrian strata, and hopefully even contact Princess Celestia herself. You will do well expecting this to be a gradual, systematic, and even relaxing process. Who knows? Perhaps you may even enjoy yourself,” he finished with a smile.
“Enjoy myself?” Scootaloo let loose a girlish laugh. She stood boldly in the center of the circles as she balked at him. “Now I know you're fooling with me, Spike.”
“Hardly, child. I do so sincerely wish for our 'experiment' here to succeed, for the sake of Equestria's future. But, more importantly, I hope that you will gain from this something that will bring you both peace and contentment.”
“Spike, I'll worry about closure when I'm dead.”
He nodded. “I was afraid of that.” He pointed. “Close your eyes, Scootaloo.”
She squinted at him in brief perplexity, but ultimately obeyed. With a shuddering breath, she allowed the world to turn dark around her. Her coat's hairs stood on end as she felt the sterile cold air around her, expecting all of it to start burning off her body in the simple flash of a green torch. Just as she began settling her trembling limbs, she sensed a dim aura spilling through her eyelids. A high pitched vibration filled the static air. Her heart started racing, and she clenched her teeth tight, preparing to plummet at any moment. Instead, she was struck with a far more alien sensation: a wave of frosted powder billowing over her figure.
Scootaloo couldn't help it. Her scarlet eyes flew open, and she gasped to see a layer of dust blanketing her mane, forehead, and hooves. The coarse gray filament matched the material that formed the now-green-glowing alchemic circles beneath her. Jaw quivering, she gazed up at Spike. “Wh-whose ashes are th-these...?”
His body was a somber shadow with cold marble eyes. “Cheerilee's,” he said, closing a jar once more in his grasp.
“Wh-what?” she stammered.
“I'm sorry, Scootaloo. It's the only way.” He leaned forward, opened his mouth, and covered half of the room in vaporous emerald light.
“Spike—!” she started, but suddenly saw his image slide away from her at two million kilometers per second. She was screaming backwards down a quivering snake skin of hundreds of refracting lenses, eating away at her flesh and bone with acidic clouds of forest-green chaos. The ivory band of Cheerilee's powdery ashes wafted off of her and coalesced around the pegasus' echoing heartbeat like a porcelain cocoon, and at the bottom of the typhoonesque collapse, the ashen egg broke away and deposited a grunting pony into a warm basin of color, smells, and life. “Nngh—Wait!” Scootaloo shouted, but her voice wasn't hers. “Hoboy...”
Her eyes flickered under the shiver of a gasp, then squinted, for a very foreign beacon of light was once more slicing its way up an alien sky, cradling her in its solar arms. Hissing, sputtering for breath, the mare wobbled up to her knees and stared up into the Sun, a thing she hadn't done in so many years that she briefly forgot what a danger it was. And yet, as long as she stared, her eyes weren't burning, as if they were made of queerly stronger stuff than granite.
She needed focus, so Scootaloo finally ripped her gaze from the Sun and looked around her. She saw the porcelain Southern Mountains, the crystal-blue lake at the base of the hills, the billowing edges of the Everfree Forest, and—coasting over the edge of a warm and sizzling eastern horizon—the first of many gold thatched rooftops that prophesied the edge of downtown Ponyville.
“Oh Spike...” she murmured in a whimpering voice, once more a breath that sounded alien to her, but she hardly cared. “You didn't send me into the past, you sent me to heaven.” She bit her lip and tried to steady herself as the emotions flooded back in a single overwhelming heap. Scootaloo felt her lungs quivering, her panting breaths coming out in tiny hyperventilating chirps. She tried to remember something that the purple dragon had taught her, about taking steady breaths, about being serene, about blending in with her surroundings. But as her eyes watered and her limbs quivered, she couldn't take into account any of those things, instead searching, gazing, piercing the sky for the one thing. “The r-rainbow, wh-where is it?”
She looked once more above the crystalline reflective surface of the lake. The prismatic band was gone. There was a lot less fog and decidedly more heat than the last time Spike had sent her to this spot. It took a few dumbfounded moments for Scootaloo to realize why: this was the afternoon, not the morning. In two and a half decades of Wasteland grayscape, the mare had forgotten that there used to be a time cycle within the span of a day. And yet, her heart rejoiced at the revelation; it was like riding her scooter again.
Her scooter... her childhood... Equestria. “Praise Celestia, it's all so magnificent,” the voice inside her half-sobbed. She limped forward on stone legs, nearly drooling. “Now where's that dang schoolhouse? I'm liable to kiss Cheerilee when I see—ACK!”
She shrieked as she suddenly slid down a long incline of red wooden shingles. Uncontrollably, she smacked into the belltower on the schoolhouse's roof, toppled over twice, and fell like an anvil off the side of the building where she had materialized back in time.
“Ummmfff!” She plunged into a wide drinking trough standing aside the playground, snout first. “Blbllblllb—” Scootaloo tossed herself out in a sputtering spray of water and plopped hard into the dirt, gasping for air. Fully soaked, she instinctually shook her coat into a flimsy facsimile of dryness and shuddered: “Wh-what did Spike say about taking deep breaths? Oh yeah, duh.”
She tilted her snout up to glance across the playground, and in so doing she peripherally noticed a wet mat of mane-hair curling over the side of her neck. Blinking, she raised a hoof to push some of the threads into closer view. What she saw was a soaked cluster of black threads, with the faintest hint of amber. Her face scrunched as she glanced every which way, then ultimately turned to face the water trough.
Trotting over and peering in, she watched as the liquid surface settled from her brief collapse into the basin. As the water smoothed, the reflection of a strange pegasus came into being: a young mare with a rusted copper coat—like the color of earthen clay—from her hooves to her feathery wings, shining far brighter and richer than the dull brown coat of future Scootaloo, or even the orange sheen that she had as a foal. And instead of violet or aged-scarlet eyes, there reflected twin marbles of bright amber, as if sculpted out of the vein of a tree in spring. Finally, her mane flowed with an elegant sheen of black silken threads—with a thin streak of amber running down the middle that matched the color of her blinking eyes.
“Well, hello there,” she murmured with drunken amusement into the bobbing reflection. “Who are you?” She finally took a moment to recognize the strange voice coming out of her. Just like everything else about her 'projection,' the voice was different, younger and deeper than her future self, but still laced with the same inflection and murmuring qualities of her experienced soul. Scootaloo judged that, whoever she looked like, she appeared no older than twenty-two winters, which—for that point in the timeline—placed her at about the same age as Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, and many of the older ponies whom Scootaloo looked up to in her youthful days. It all seemed strangely, even fatefully appropriate; all fears about anypony recognizing her flew out an invisible window. If she could somehow come back to the future looking and sounding like this, she was certain even Spike himself would scratch a scaled head in confusion.
The transplanted mare ran a hoof one more time through her obsidian threads, before a sudden movement in front of her grabbed her attention. Glancing up, she realized that she was standing in front of a window to the schoolhouse. A veil of curtains hung over the pane, but there was a ruby shadow shuffling from within, followed by a muffled feminine voice and several young murmurs replying in cadence. Twenty-five-and-a-quarter years into the past, school was in session; Scootaloo's heart skipped a beat. She glanced at the warm landscape buzzing around her. She smelled the crisp spring air and she heard the singing of birds and the murmur of cicadas. Spike's Ponyvillean terrarium was a pathetic pindrop in the great throbbing basin of life that was now encompassing her, hugging her. She had every reason to stand right there and soak in that moment forever.
She didn't.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Can anyone tell me what a harpy is?” Several hooves lifted into the classroom air with mixed levels of enthusiasm. An adult mare sporting a joyful mane of fuchsia looked over her students and picked out the most eager of the bunch. “Yes, Snips? Do you know?”
“Oh—! Uhm—A 'harpy' is like that cutie mark on the lady who owns the music store in downtown!” A chorus of giggles lit the room. The rotund little unicorn in the center of the laughing circle sunk shamefully in his desk seat.
The ruby-coated schoolteacher chuckled sweetly. “No no, Snips—And for clarification, Ms. Heartstring's cutie mark is aptly named a 'lyre,' not a 'harp.'” Cheerilee cleared her throat and smiled at all of the students. “A harpy is a sentient creature that resembles a falcon. It has the body of a bird of prey, including sharp talons and broad wings, but its upper half consists of the head of a simian, only with a pronounced beak.” She trotted over towards a picture stand and unveiled a poster of the avian monstrosity. Half of the class gasped, the other half murmured 'ooohs' and stared forward with tilting interest. “Over ninety percent of their population is female. They feast mostly on the meat of rodents and smaller birds, and they live in nocturnal clusters along the bluffs of the Eastern Ocean shore.”
“Ewwww..” A pink coated pony with a tiara for a cutie mark made a wretching face. “Like—Who in their right mind would actually eat meat?”
“Yeah, that's so gross!” A silver filly mirrored her friend's nauseated voice from one desk over. “They might as well just chomp on each other!”
“Hmmm... An understandable reaction.” Cheerilee nodded. “Eating meat is very taboo in pony culture. But, as a matter of fact, there are many sentient creatures in Equestria who eat meat on a regular basis, such as our allies, the Griffons to the Northwest. And they live out their lives in relative peace and tranquility.” The teacher motioned once more to the beastly picture propped before the class. “Even many harpies today live a pacifist existence. But that hasn't always been the case. Equestria used to be swarming with violent flocks of the creatures, ruthless pirates who ravaged the countryside during the Chaos Wars that preceded the Second Age. And—”
Cheerilee's gaze glanced up at the sound of clopping hooves, and her green eyes twitched. Something of a grimace graced her figure, but she suppressed it at the last second, clearing her throat and smiling presently in the company of the little foals.
“Ahem—Erm... Why, h-hello there! Is there—uhm—something I can help you with?”
The faces of three dozen foals twisted confusedly. With the creaking of wooden desk seats, they gradually turned around to see a curious sight at the back of the classroom. A young adult pegasus stood, her long black mane a wet and tangled mess, her copper coat dripping a puddle of moisture over the floorboards. The open doors basked her in a platinum aura, like a golden visitor from beyond. Nopony knew any wiser.
Scootaloo gulped, dumbly gazing at the forty-odd young sets of eyes blinking up at her, the first time in years that any ponies had stared at her ever. Her heart was beating so hard, she had a difficult time standing. To keep her legs from wobbling, she stepped a hoof forward, but jumped the first moment she saw the foals' bright eyes moving along with her. Clenching her teeth, she leaned back into a row of bookshelves and gulped, exhaling in a wheeze: “H-hi there...”
“Hello.” “Hiya.” “Hi there.” “Hello, ma'am.” “Hello'm.” “Hi.”
“Hoboy...” Scootaloo shuddered, a sore lump forming in her throat. So many eyes; so many ashes. A wave of gray overcast washed over her vision until her last blink ended, and the schoolroom was staring at her once again, the many young faces scrunching in confusion. There was not a single frightened expression amongst them. The last pony suddenly felt like hugging every individual one—
“Did you have a delivery of school supplies to make?” Cheerilee's chirpy voice rocked Scootaloo back onto her hooves. “The deposit box is out in the back. I happen to... uh... be teaching class at the moment.” She cleared her voice and added with a wink. “Unless you want to take a seat and learn about the carnivorous habit of harpies!”
Rows of seats giggled amusedly.
“N-no, I... I-I...” Scootaloo murmured, trotting slowly around the circumference of the one-room class as the many heads swiveled innocently to follow her. “Er—I m-mean sure. I'm... a delivery pony... Or something like that... Y-yes...” Her voice deflated under a raspy air of nervous chokes. She coughed, shook her wet black mane a bit drier, and stumbled into a pole bearing the flag of the Celestial Crest. She winced—jittering—and set the rocking banner still. With a calming breath, she stood back on four hooves. “J-Just, passing through... and... uhm...”
“Who sent you?” Cheerilee spoke in a suddenly hushed voice that was meant for the two of them alone. She trotted over slightly. “Do you have a working permit?”
“I... uhm...” Scootaloo turned and instinctively tilted her head up, until she realized she had to lower her face to stare Cheerilee eye-to-eye. “Jeez, you're shorter than I remembered.”
The schoolteacher's green eyes blinked crookedly at that.
Suddenly, a filly gasped girlishly from the front row and pointed an excited hoof. “Oooooh! Look at her cutie mark!”
“Wowwww!” “That's so awesome!” “Coool!” “I've never seen one like that!” “Pretttttty!”
Cheerilee seized the moment, her face brightening as she stood aside the visitor's flank. “Oh, yes! It is a most splendid cutie mark, isn't it!”
“Huh?” Scootaloo blinked at the teacher. She glanced back at her hindquarters and did a double-take, her amber eyes exploding. “Holy manure castles!”
Emblazoned across her copper coat was an elaborate masterpiece of magical branding. A celestial ring of black and amber sunflares encircled an ink-dark pair of loops, like a stretched-out figure '8.' Judging from its sideways angle, it had to have been some natural version of the 'infinity' symbol, complete with what could be best described as an abstract mimic of the Celestial Crest. Scootaloo performed a few dashing glances back and forth from her sudden mark to the flag in the corner of the schoolroom just to be sure, and there was no doubt about it.
“Well, if that isn't the most awesome thing ever that ever awesome'd...”
“Class—Remember our lessons on the cutie mark last month? Can anyone tell me what that crest on her flank means?” A few hooves rose up. Cheerilee pointed towards the center of the room. “Yes, Twist?”
“It meanth that thhe'th in the Royal Thervice of Canterlot Court!”
“Royal Service of What-Now?” Scootaloo gave a sweating grimace.
“Absolutely, Twist!” Cheerilee grinned, standing boldly next to the immeasurably confused visitor. “All ponies born with that crest are lucky enough to become servants in Princess Celestia's Court! It means that they get to live out their lives as overseers and watchhorses, spreading the Sun Goddess' influence far and wide and maintaining order across Equestria! We're very lucky to have this special guest here with us, today!”
The teacher spun and grinned in Scootaloo's face with a sudden foalish giddiness as she hopped in place, whispering:
“IsthisabouttherequestforthefieldtriptovisittheWhinniepegMuseum?”
Scootaloo's copper temples lost grip of a sizable sweatdrop. “I-I... Actually, I-I just wanted to—”
“Most esteemed servant to her Highness, Princess Celestia...!” Cheerilee proudly swept her muzzle towards the classroom, her voice like a sugar-coated megaphone. “...why don't you grace the students with what exactly it is that you do for our Keeper of the Sun?!”
The copper mare's eyes bulged. She glanced nervously across the rows upon rows of pastel colored eyes staring felicitously at her. It was a veritable sea of infant lungs holding a giant breath in anticipation of Scootaloo's next charming words...
“I... I-I deliver... p-packages for the... Royal... R-Royal Office of... uhm...,” She blinked. “Fl-Flamestones.” She winced, but brightened slightly as the class murmured in awe at her fabrication.
“What'th a Flamethtone?” a spritely redhead with thick eyeglasses gaped.
“A flamestone...” Scootaloo exhaled, speaking suddenly with natural ease: “Ahem. It's a type of gem that has been enchanted with elemental red flame as a result of severe compression brought upon by the collapsing chunks of the moon that collided with the face of the Equestrian Wasteland immediately after the Caaaaaat-aaaaa-clyyyyyysmmmmm—” Her face twisted into an endless wince as she swiftly registered the words that had been spat out of her mouth.
The class stared prolongly at her, a mosaic of blank faces. A long necked unicorn, his brown face scrunched, throated: “Derr—What's a cat of clysm?”
“It m-means a destructive event that forever changes the face of the Earth—Excuse me, class,” Cheerilee nervously spun around and looked worriedly in Scootaloo's face. “Ma'am, is everything alright? No offense, but you don't look or sound too well. Are you feeling ill?” Cheerilee's green eyes blinked. “Ma'am?”
Scootaloo was staring at the children, face after face, snout after snout, horns and ears and manes—But no hairbows. “Wh-where is Apple Bloom...?” She murmured in a childish voice. Then, a startled gasp escaped her lips as Scootaloo's amber eyes darted towards the center of the room. She focused on a hauntingly familiar seat that stood empty before her. “Where am I today?!”
“Erm—The Apple Family's daughter is home sick for the day. As for you... erm...”
“This is early spring...” Scootaloo gulped. “Apple Bloom was sick with the pony pox,” she thought out loud. “Sweetie Belle was with her parents for a month, and I...” She bit her lip. “I was hungry... t-too friggin' hungry to even walk. Sweet Celestia...”
“Eh heh heh heh...” Cheerilee shifted awkwardly, gulping. “Ahem—Ma'am, may I have a word with you in the atrium for a quick moment—?”
“They're all going to die...” Scootaloo slurred, her eyes quivering at all of the happy, innocent faces. “Every single one of them.” She hissed through clenched teeth and tilted her wincing snout ceilingward in a maddening stupor. “This building—I've seen it from the clouds. Not one stone is lying on top of another...”
“M-ma'am!” Cheerilee gasped, nervously glancing from the class to the pegasus and back. She leaned into her, nudging a little. “Please—Let's take this into the other room. You'll scare the children—”
At the word 'scare,' Scootaloo's eyes flashed open. Trailing on her lashes were scores of lantern-lit memories, of pale leathery trolls thrashing at her through the darkness, of billowing stormfronts that threatened to tear her zeppelin apart, of lonely nights spent lying in a swaying hammock and reading about the immortal sorrows of a dead Princess. A pained breath surfaced at the base of her lungs and came out in the form of a menacing snarl. She had seen the world consumed in fire, and she had ridden the tongues of flame back to this shuddering moment in time. The holocaust had to end somewhere.
“I'm sorry, Spike. But screw it.” She spun and stared daggers into Cheerilee's eyes. “You. You need to contact Princess Celestia now.”
“M-me...?” The ruby-coated teacher wilted backwards. She chuckled nervously, “B-but I'm not the Royal Servant to the Court of Canterlot! Eh heh heh... You're the one qualified to—”
“Will you stuff it with this 'Royal Servant' nonsense?!” Scootaloo barked, eliciting several foalish gasps from the classroom. She took a few vicious hoofsteps towards the teacher. “The only business I'm here for is to send a message. And it's a message that has to be sent to Princess Celestia! Nopony else! And I don't have much time—”
“I-I can't be expected to leave th-this classroom now to deliver anything!” Cheerilee frowned. “Even if I could contact the Princess—”
“This is not a joke!” Scootaloo snarled, her voice echoing across the schoolroom as she leered above Cheerilee. “Something horrible is going to happen! Something really bad! Ponies are going to die—Not just some ponies, but everypony—”
“Please—You're making a scene—”
“Dang right I am! Now let's stop beating around the bush and go see the Princess! I'm not going to be here forever—Time is of the essence! And, girl, you have no idea how true that statement is!”
“Uhm...I don't know what you're—”
“The end of ponies!” Scootaloo's amber eyes flared as she breathed in desperate heaves. “A burning wave of magic that will render all of equine life to ash! You have no idea—No clue what kind of devastation I'm talking about! The Sun and the Moon—They will be gone! Vanished! Leaving nothing but endless twilight—”
Scootaloo's voice stopped, her ears pricking for having heard something like a whimper. She gazed aside and twitched to see the four-eyed redhead cowering behind her desk, her glasses fogged. To her sides and behind her, several more students were trembling, scrunched away from the sight of the rambling stranger. There were tears, tears...
“No no no—It's... It's not so bad—I mean, yes, it is bad—” Scootaloo smiled crookedly, trying to straighten her frazzled black threads as she trotted towards the desks. The entire classroom shrugged away from her in one fluid jolt. She stopped in her tracks and gulped. “Okay—So it's terrible. But m-most of you are still young, so—Uh—You should be enjoying all of this while it lasts! Everypony dies at some point, but it's just the nature of—” A few more confused sobs filled the air. Scootaloo snarled: “Look, it's not like I brought the end of the world, okay? So don't be scared of me!” They still trembled and shivered. She barked: “I said don't be scared!”
The foals winced, covering their eyes to avoid her snarling gaze. She blinked at them, starting to hyperventilate as the impossible situation crumbled more and more. There was a whispering sound towards the rear of the room. She spun around to see that Cheerilee was no longer by her side. Instead, the jittery teacher was squatting beside the long-necked unicorn, murmuring into the colt's ear.
“Snails, go to the corner of Fifth and McCracken, and fetch Officer Silvertrot.”
“Y-Yes, Ms. Cheerilee,” the colt nervously jolted, bounded out of his seat, and galloped out of the school entrance.
“Wh-what are you doing—?” Scootaloo blinked wildly.
Cheerilee motioned towards the doors, trotting over to shut them. “Why don't you just calm down and have a seat—”
“No!” Scootaloo rushed over, forcing Cheerilee to jump. “Don't leave! Don't—” She nudged Cheerilee away from the door and smiled in a frazzled mess. “G-good. Don't leave me—If you walk away too far, I-I might vanish and go back to the future—”
“Th-the future?” Cheerilee gazed at her, dumbfounded.
“It's a long story. But that's not for you to hear.” Scootaloo patted the teacher's wincing shoulder. “That's for the Princess. She'll understand—Or at least she'd better. She can't prevent the world from ending, but maybe she can help me figure out how it happened—” She grunted at the sound of several sobs and flashed a frown over her shoulder. “Stop crying! It'll all be fine! I just gotta talk to the Princess—”
“Maybe you should just sit down while I'll prepare a letter—”
“Not a stupid letter, girl! I need to talk to Princess Celestia personally!” Scootaloo exclaimed. She suddenly started at a sight over Cheerilee's flank. Through a sunny window, she could see the unicorn colt galloping back with two blue uniformed adult ponies in tow. “Y-you fetched the police on me?”
“I-I...” Cheerilee shivered, staring forlornly at the distraught classroom and then back at the raving pegasus. “P-please, just t-try to stay calm, Ma'am—”
“No, that's good!” Scootaloo beamed, clasping Cheerilee's wide-eyed face with a pair of hooves. “Go on and call the police! Fetch the Royal Guard while you're at it! I need Princess Celestia's attention! She's gotta know one way or another—Nnnngh!—Oh Goddess, this sunlight feels so good!” she briefly panted as she gazed out the window to happily watch the arrival of the police. “It's like I'm on fire—but in a good way! I wonder if I'll see the sunset?! It's been ages since I've seen a sunset! The world is so cold and dead and lifeless—I've forgotten just how... just how... Nnngh!” She spat over her shoulder again. “Stop crying already! Don't confirm all the crap Gilda's ever said! I thought ponies were stronger than this!”
“I-I got 'em, Mrs. Cheerilee!” Snails panted suddenly from the back of the room. He bowed out of the way as two tall stallions marched in, gazing sternly in Scootaloo's direction.
“Ma'am, is there a problem?”
“Stallions!... Ha HA!” Scootaloo guffawed and clapped her hooves, wide-eyed. “Dang it to blazes—Where were you after I hit puberty?!” She cleared her throat, straightened her lips, and strongly orated, “I need to see Princess Celestia right away.”
One uniformed pony raised his eyebrow. “Is that a fact?”
“Absolutely. I don't care if you need to arrest me or whatever—Just take me to her. This can't wait.”
“And what exactly is it that can't wait, ma'am?” The two officers marched towards her.
She eyed them warily, her wings flexing. “How many times am I going to have to spell it out and to how many ponies?” She furrowed her brow. “Five months from now, the world is going to end in fire! Every living pony is going to turn to ash while the Sun and Moon die! I need to talk to the Princess and figure out how this is going to happen so I can undo the damage that will be done!”
The officers glanced at the wilting sight of the classroom, then back at the pegasus. “How about you just come with us—?”
“Yes. Fine. Take me—But as long as we talk to the Princess!”
“Th-thank you, officers,” Cheerilee murmured, backtrotting towards the classroom. “I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't—”
Scootaloo gasped at her. “Don't you stay here!” She shouted and leaped towards her. “We have to stay together! Or else I'll be zapped forward in time—” She jolted as the two police ponies suddenly grabbed her by the flank and tail. “Nnngh—Let go!”
“Easy now—!” The stallions struggled and applied their weight. “You've done quite enough—!”
“Didn't you hear me?” Scootaloo wrangled her wings under one of the colts with veteran tenacity and easily flung the surprised officer across the room so that he crashed into a filing cabinet, forcing the room full of foals to shriek. “We have to stay together! I'm not even going to pretend to argue with you!”
“Ma'am! If you don't calm down, we'll be forced to—!”
“The world is going to die in flames and you're telling me to 'calm down'?” Scootaloo snarled and lowered on her haunches, her copper wings poised to spring while the two officers stumbled back onto their hooves and circled her. “I'm not going to ask this again, you good-for-nothing punks! Take me to the Princess or I will—”
“It's alright!” Cheerilee suddenly ran in the officers' way, blocking the space between them and the menacing pegasus. “Please—It's okay. Th-there's no need for a struggle.” She gulped. “I'll go with her to see the Princess.” She turned from the blinking stallions and smiled gently at Scootaloo. Her coat was a ruby glaze of cold sweat. “We're not going to get separated, okay? Just stick with me—We'll go see the Princess together.”
Scootaloo breathed easier. She stood up straight and rode the cresting descent of adrenaline in her bloodstream. “Whew... That's more like it! Looks like at least one pony in Equestria gives a crap about the future!” She trotted towards the schoolhouse entrance, pausing to look back and make sure Cheerilee was walking with her as well. She smiled as the teacher strolled up. “I'm so sorry to be such a bother, but you g-gotta understand how important this is...”
“Oh, absolutely!” Cheerilee grinned back. “You've obviously been through an awful lot, and it's so very noble of you to give us this warning. I'm sure Princess Celestia will be in your debt—Not to mention all of Ponyville.”
“I'm not doing all of this for glory or fame—I just want to find a way to make my world sunny again. You like sunsets, don't you?”
“Indubitably!” Cheerilee nodded, briefly glancing back and squinting at the two colts. The officers followed as the four of them marched away from the schoolyard and towards the fringes of Ponyville. “If you would follow me, ma'am, I know a place where we can send a telegram to Princess Celestia—”
“I thought I friggin' told you I needed to speak to her face to face!”
“Oh, of course! But the telegrams are sent by pegasi like you—This will be the fastest we can get her to come see us!”
“Oh, well that's just fine. Yes, just fine—Nnnngh—Gawd, this grass is so amazing! Isn't the grass amazing? There's no grass in the future, y'know...”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“And the birds? Nope. All dead. Isn't that a shame? Though, to be frank, I never cared much for chickens. But that's a long story that I won't get into.”
“Uh huh...” Cheerilee nodded as the two ducked into the rear door of a two-story cinderblocked building on the edge of Ponyville. The sounds of theirs and the officers' hooves echoed across brightly lit corridors as they took a left, a right, and descended a series of steps into a dimly lit basement. “You certainly miss a lot of things where you come from.”
“Pfft—I'm just rambling off a list of random crud that I see. Do forgive me.” Scootaloo chuckled against her shadows on the walls. “It's just been so long since I talked to another pony—What with all of you being dead and stuff. I'm amazed that I didn't take to talking to myself after so many years of being alone. I used to always think that's what bums did. But wait—Did Ponyville have bums? I must be getting my memories mixed up with that one summer I spent at a foster home in Manehattan. Boy did I laugh when I found that place flooded with sea water and harpy turds after the Cataclysm.”
“Wow—That does sound funny!” Cheerilee droned, her smile a plastic one as she finally stopped in her tracks, glancing over Scootaloo's shoulders and towards the officers.
“Pfft—Why would you find that funny?” Scootaloo smirked, blinked, then glanced stupidly around the basement. There were several barred cells lining the corridor. “Wait, where in the hay are we—?”
Suddenly, both stallions gave her a vicious shove. She stumbled—gasping—into one of the jail cells, collapsing onto the floor as the metal barred door was slammed shut behind her. She sputtered, gasped, and clamored up to her hooves.
“No—No!” She ran up and rammed the door with her full weight. The bars clanged and rattled, filling the basement with a thunderous echo. Even the officers jumped back at her unnatural strength, but breathed easier as the doors held. “Don't do this!” Scootaloo shouted. “I'm so close to contacting the Princess! If you just allow me to speak with her—” She blinked, and her eyes narrowed on the quivering face of Cheerilee. “You lied to me, didn't you?”
“Th-thank you, officers.” The ruby-haired schoolteacher finally broke down, collapsing into the forelimbs of one of the uniformed stallions as he gently patted her shoulder. “I-I didn't know what else to do. She was sc-scaring the ch-children. I... I-I was afraid that she was going to do worse!”
“You did the right thing, Ms. Cheerilee,” the officer said, settling her trembling form. “Bluestone...” He motioned towards the other officer. “Go and fetch Nurse Red Heart. See if she can use her fancy schmancy degree in psychiatry to sort this poor soul out.”
“Roger. On it.” The other trotted away.
“You... Y-You think I'm crazy?” Scootaloo murmured. She frowned, then snarled, banging against the bars with copper hooves. “Well maybe there's a reason to be crazy! Did you ever think of that? What if you were the last living pony stuck in a world full of endless destruction and blood?! You'd go crazy too! But—dang it—I'm trying to do something good here! We can save Equestria! We can figure out why all this death and destruction happened—If you would just let me talk to the Princess!”
“You'll talk to someone alright.” The officer nodded towards her, his face emotionless and cool. “Now calm down or Nurse Heart's gonna have to replace these bars with something more padded!” He moved Cheerilee away from the raving pegasus. “You, have a seat, darling. I'll get you something to drink. I already sent Officer Haybreeze to watch over your class. Everything's gonna be fine. Your kids are okay.”
“H-how could anyone j-just walk up to a classroom of foals and d-disturb the peace like that?” Cheerilee shuddered and sniffled as the two walked towards a couch just around the corner from Scootaloo's vision. “In all my years of teaching, nothing like that has ever happened! What c-could that poor soul have gone through to be so... so lost?”
“I don't pretend to understand the mind of a pony, Ms. Cheerilee. My only job is to keep the peace.”
The word 'peace' rang through Scootaloo's ears, laced with the distant gasps of Cheerilee's sobbing voice. The breaths mutated into an invisible schoolroom full of frightened, quivering foals, their eyes brimming with tears, their eyes wide and horrified, their eyes staring at her.
“Why is everyone so easily scared?” She slumped down to her haunches and plowed her hooves through her flustered black mane. “They have to know. They have to know what's going to happen,” she stammered and quivered, rocking back and forth in the center of the dimly lit jail cell. “We're all going to die. We're all going to die. I just want to tell them all. I just want...” She clenched her eyes shut as the images of the foals' frightened faces flashed once more across her mind in a spinning kaleidoscope. “Nnnngh—No-No-No! You do not know the horror! Not like I do! Stop crying—Stop it... Stop it... Stop—!”
Suddenly, the cell lit up in a green aura. Scootaloo gasped. For a moment, she thought that one of the police ponies had trotted back with a lantern of some sort in his grasp, but Cheerilee and Officer Silvertrot had been seated well beyond sight. Once more, the immense emerald glow flickered, burning from the barren cot to the floorboards to the cinderblock foundation of the place.
Scootaloo stood up, shivering, and watched as a sea of green flames curtained across the room, billowed around her legs, and wafted over her. There was sudden rising sensation, like riding the Harmony up through a cloudbed, and Scootaloo's copper body burned to brown, her mane melted down into tiny violet stubble, and her eyes blinked from amber to scarlet. She was standing numbly in the burnt out alchemic circles drawn into the stone floor of a cavernous laboratory, under the the shadow of a calmly gazing, unamused Spike.
“I...” the last pony blinked. “I-I'm back? Already?” She gazed up at the purple dragon, her face pale. “B-but... But I thought I was supposed to be in the past for no less than five days!”
He stared at her, his green-crested chin propped on a hand of serrated claws. “I distinctly remember saying that I had stored enough green flame to send you back for a week. However, I did not state that I was indeed going to give you that much.”
“But... B-but why, Spike?” Scootaloo stammered; her natural voice was once again a frail thing aged by time and suffering. “I thought you were sending me back to get information.”
There was a knowing glint to Spike's emerald eyes as the elder dragon murmured: “You said it yourself, Scootaloo. You 'don't do subtle'.” He planted both hands down and bent over to stare deep into her soul. “You didn't follow an ounce of my advice, now did you?”
She wilted from his gaze, her eyes wavering like so many images of frightened foals still burned into her vision. Guiltily, she hung her snout towards the dull circles and muttered: “How did you know?”
“Because I know you, Scootaloo.” The noble dragon paced around her and came to a stop in the center of the laboratory. He reached over and rested a gentle hand on her shaved mane. “And though you've learned countless things in your years, read innumerable books, survived hundreds of horrors, outrun packs of bloodthirsty monstrosities—You are still, underneath all of that, the same dashing, bold, courageous, albeit impulsive little foal that nearly ran over fellow Ponyvilleans in the road with her scooter.” His lips curved slightly. “Underneath all of your hardened exterior, you are still that spunky little filly who once beat up a pair of colts for making fun of me, even though you didn't know that we were just joking around one rainy afternoon in April. And that little dragon, though honored by the way you tried to defend me, couldn't help but wish that she had thought a little more with her senses, at least as much as she did with her heart.”
She gnashed her teeth. She gazed up at him with moist eyes. “I told them, Spike.”
“Told who, Scootaloo?”
“Ms. Cheerilee. These two police officers. The... The f-foals...” She shuddered painfully. “Th-they all heard me talking about the end of the world. They thought I was rambling...” A wince. “And I was. Dang it, I was. But... But...” She shivered and buckled.
“Don't hold back, child—”
“Do you really realize what you're asking me to do, Spike?!” She shouted up at him, a tear or two trickling down her cheeks. “You want me to keep this awful truth built up like a raging boiler inside of me! And yet, I'm somehow supposed get these ponies to help me figure out why the world dies? I have to tell someone, Spike! How else am I going to learn anything?”
“And surely you can share the truth, but you have to do it tactfully,” Spike said, stroking her mane and leaning down so his large snout was even with hers. “Subtlety, Scootaloo. I cannot emphasize it enough. These ponies have not been through all the turmoils and struggles that you have. If you go galloping through the streets, screaming that the world is going to end, what else can you expect from them but disbelief or utter shock?”
“I was standing in the warmth of the Sun...” Scootaloo hiccuped, wiping her tears away with a trembling hoof. “And there was grass, and birds, and the children—Oh Goddess—the children! I scared them, Spike—I shouted at them.” She clenched her eyes shut and trembled. “I don't know why! It was like... It was like—”
“You were angry at them.”
Her eyes flashed open. She gazed sickly up at her old friend. “How horrible is that?” She breathed. “What did they ever do for me to envy them so much?”
“They died, Scootaloo. All of them died, as you and I will someday die,” he said. “Whatever the disaster, whatever the Cataclysm, it is still our greatest commonality. There will always be time for pity and envy, as they are often two halves of the same misguided coin. But that doesn't mean you should announce their doom while they're standing right in front of you. Epitaphs are meant to be engraved on ponies' stones, not on their faces.”
She paced over limply towards a lone laboratory table and slumped down against it. She nuzzled her face tiredly into a pair of folded hooves. “What use is any of that now?” She gazed up pathetically at the burnt diagram of the past and future on the cave wall, at the jaded lines plastered to an encircled 'Xl' “I blew it, Spike. The first trip back in time, and I've blown my cover. I've made a mess of everything.”
“I wouldn't be so certain of that,” he said in a slight smile, shuffling across the room. “Yes, a mess you indeed made. But you've hardly ruined things.”
“Oh really?!” She tilted her gaze up at him, frowning. “So terrorizing a classroom full of young children doesn't qualify as 'ruining things?' You've spent waaaaay too many centuries inside a mountain, Spike.”
“Like a good lab assistant, I've done my homework,” the elder dragon remarked as he thumbed his clawed fingers through a shelf of parchments. Finally, he pulled out a rolled-up scroll that resembled a flake of scrap paper in his monstrous palm. Marching back on scaled legs, he knelt down and placed the document before her. “While all things living have died in the hovels of Ponyville, the legacy they have left behind remains remarkably intact, including the most inane bits of data that one with enough free time can scrounge up from the ruins of—oh, say—the Ponyvillean Police Department Records.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. Curiously, she slid the scroll towards herself, unsealed it, and stretched the quarter-century-old document open. Her scarlet eyes danced down the rows of neatly scribbled words, and her optics brightened at the end of the perusal. Her jaw dropped as she murmured: “The report talks about a 'deranged pegasus' that was escorted to the jail cell for immediate psychiatric evaluation following an incident at Ms. Cheerilee's schoolhouse. But as soon as the officers sent for the village nurse—The suspect disappeared...” She blinked into the stone extremities of the cavernous lair. “Spike, that 'deranged suspect' was me!”
“An apt description, I would imagine.” He chuckled softly.
“You... You knew about this?” She squinted up at him.
He innocently smoothed his green spines back. “I... suspected it. It wouldn't be the first occasion that I've witnessed time perform a perfect full circle before my eyes. So it's hardly of any surprise to me. If anything, it should be something of consolation for the two of us.” He pointed with a clawed finger. “Does it say anything about the fate of that certain pegasus? Hmm?”
Scootaloo glanced once more at the document, her scarlet eyes narrowing. She murmured aloud: “'Cheerilee and several students were interviewed to compile a list of details to describe the suspect, but no matches were found in the immediate search. Within two weeks, Sheriff Goldmane decided the case did not warrant wanted posters—',” she made a face. “The heck?! I thought I traumatized those kids!”
“Do not be so quick to demonize yourself, child,” Spike said. “If I recall correctly, Cheerilee's schoolhouse was no stranger to bizarre incidents. In one winter month alone, the windows had to be replaced on three separate occasions from a single wayward postal worker flying far too low for pegasus standards. You must realize, what made life in Ponyville exciting is far different from what makes existence in the Wastes exciting.” He smiled slyly.
“Do...uh...” she gulped, sliding the scroll back towards him. “Do you have any more written evidences of my time traveling self in your 'library', Spike?”
He took the scroll, shaking his scaled snout with a dangle of his violet pendant. “Not that I've found, child. But, if you ask me, that can only be a marvelous thing.”
“Why's that?”
“Because it means you'll be following my advice!” he grinned toothily, shelving the scroll away and closing the cabinet drawers. “And the next time you go to the past, you will try to do things with subtlety.”
She blinked, eyes wide. “Y-you're sending me back? Right now? Right after I just made a mule out of myself?”
“Oh, I could very well send you soon.” Spike nodded. “But it won't be so soon in the past.” He marched over towards another cabinet and picked up a lead metal box in his clawed hands. “For the sake of caution, I plan to send you a month after your—mmm—'Cheerilee incident'.”
“So it will be four months before the Cataclysm,” Scootaloo remarked. Her eyes narrowed knowingly on the purple dragon. “You planned this from the beginning, didn't you? Ms. Cheerilee was a test!”
“Hmmm. Indeed.” He nodded, shuffling over on iron haunches with the box in his grasp. He placed it down onto the lab table just above Scootaloo. “And where you'll be going next, you'll be facing another test, a test of your tenacity for blending in with the world, a test of your ability to adopt a face and a name—and even a backstory. Because where you'll be going, your strength in finding truth will inevitably go through the crucible of bending it.”
“Something tells me you're not stressing where you'll be sending me as much as who you'll sending me to,” she muttered, standing up alongside him and glancing briefly at the box. “Is this someone's elses ashes?”
“No, Scootaloo. I do not have the ashes for whom we both seek.”
“Y-you don't?” Scootaloo blinked. “H-how come?”
“Though I may be the master of time travel,” he said as he undid the lock to the lead box and opened it with a rusted creak. “I am anything but the Wasteland's chief scavenger.” He reached into the box and pulled out several necklaces tied to tiny white shards of calcium. “If you are truly committed to this experiment, Scootaloo, and if you are willing to go the lengths required to avoid an incident like what happened with Ms. Cheerilee from henceforth, then it will be up to you to find the lasting ingredients.”
“How come everything is a test with you?” She smirked briefly up at him. The last pony then motioned her snout towards the shards dangling in the dragon's grasp. “What are these?”
“Baby dragon teeth, renown for their sensitivity to enchantment.”
“Whose dragon teeth?” Scootaloo blinked, then rolled her scarlet eyes. “Oh, lemme guess...”
“But of course.” He smiled, then melted his expression into a neutral sigh as he uttered, “I've stored them centuries ago for such a time when they could be of supreme use, and—alas—that moment has come.” He danced the dangling tooths between his scaled fingers as they glistened in the purple mana lanterns lining the cavern. “Most of them are attuned to specific souls, each being the soul of a pony who I knew in the past, and who I can anchor your soul-self to. With these enchanted teeth, you can find the remains of our former friends among the Wastes of Equestria. And once you do...”
“I'll have their ashes.” Scootaloo gulped. “The ashes we need to perform the binding.” She looked sadly up at the dragon. “Spike—Why didn't you warn me about Cheerilee's remains before you sent me back?”
His nostrils fumed somberly. “I suspected it may have made you reticent to take the necessary first step.”
“You can't protect me forever, Spike.”
“A truth that I acknowledge whole-heartedly,” he said with a nod, then handed her a single dragon's tooth on an orange string. “Which is why I believe you are completely and fully ready for performing this search, as it will prepare you for the next chronal leap at hoof.”
She hung the orange-tinted tooth before her eyes, squinting at it. “How do you know it'll work with me—The tooth that is?”
“The same way I'm able to send you into the past beyond the Cataclysm while I myself cannot go that far,” he said with a faint, knowing smirk. “The soul essence of ponies is the heart of the enchantment. The dragon tooth will be able to take you straight to the target's remains, while it will be completely dull to me, even if the fang itself came from my whelpish body.”
She stared intently at tooth, sweating. “I... I-I'm not sensing a thing, Spike.”
“Shhhh,” he exhaled calmly. “Relax, child. Do not stress—Only feel.”
She took a deep breath. She held the dangling tooth close to her heart and closed her eyes. Through solid inhales, she tried to form a picture in her mind.
What she got instead was a scent—The fragrance of dry barn hay, of rich soil and dirt, of rusted plows and wooden yokes and rows upon rows of delicious red fruit—And then a panorama of luscious green trees flickered through her shut eyelids, and when she snapped her scarlet optics open, they were dilating under the persistent weight of truth.
“Applejack.”
Act Two: Hooves on the Ground
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Needed corrections: 1) "“You seem to have a close knit group of friends,” the pegasus spoke through the lips of “Harmony”." quotes around Harmony aren't needed.
Highlights: I very much liked the compliment given to Scootaloo from AJ that she is like her friend Rainbow Dash. LOL on the conversation of giving out a doctrine to a 'Mister Whooves' during the dinner scene.
The single most devastating words in the entire chapter on the first read through, ' "The storm cellar,” the last pony murmured '. I literally sat their just looking, re-reading those few words and the few words before them in shock.
My only sense of comfort at the end of the read was that Big Mac was also in the cellar as well instead of where his remains were found.
Good read, very good read.
78863
Whenever the narrator has referred to Harmony, it's been in quotes. It's intentional as it signifies that she is not truly "Harmony," she is Scootaloo. It's basically if you were doing airquotes around a word irl.
91072 oh I see now! thanks for that.
I felt relief when Scoots locked them all in the cellar. *phew* They will live through this one!
I was, at first, in shock about the storm cellar.
But, if I'm not mistaken, it was fairly intact when Scoots went to get the 'samples' of AJ that she needed. I'm very happy to know they have three months left to live
Wait a minute... three months?!
It's been a while since I read this chapter, but a weird thing just happened. I was watching Over a Barrel, and I heard Applejack saying “And that's when the yellow birdie thought to himself, 'Hmm, my favorite little tree isn't such a little tree anymore'. So she sang her song, big and strong, and they all lived in that great big tree happily ever after. The end.” I knew it seemed familiar, but I thought nothing of it and continued the episode. When it was over, I went back to the beginning and listened again. I remembered the rest of the story, just not where I'd heard it. So I googled it, and I found this chapter. I was like, "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Lol. And it's SUCH a cute story...did you make it up? Haha, that was awesome...
Whoaly wow.
Okay, I'm only halfway through, but I have to comment before I forget all these wonderful thoughts and feelings.
This chapter is really getting to me. Scootaloo's speech (should I call it a soliloquy?) on emptiness and home slapped me in the tear ducts. I adore her relationship with Granny Smith--I have the whole time, but my heart just got warm enough to mention it--and the implications that Big Mac has a crush on this universe's Lyra is just plain toasty.
Loving all the descriptions and floating dialogue. This chapter is moving along very nicely.
...Oh my gosh. That's the same story that Applejack is reading to Bloomberg! :'D Skirts, you bloody genius!
HOLY CRAP! That was... that was amazing! Forgetting comments, I gotta read the next chapter...
Maybe this fic really is all it's cracked up to be...
Looking past how indescribably amazing this story is, I have to say...
One pony versus an army of trolls. Why does this all feel like some cheesy joke?
damn I might draw a sketch a couple of scenes from this fan-fic.
Sigh. This thing is so long. Yet so awesome. Onwards and rightwards I suppose.
I wonder how invincible Scoots is. And how much her muscles can output. Was she overpowered by two cops?
> Epithets are meant to be engraved on ponies' stones, not on their faces.
> Epithets
i.imgur.com/cu4FskP.png
I'm 100% certain I pointed out this error when I delved into your earlier version...Okay, fine.
i.imgur.com/V76m64E.png
I'll just be ignoring it (and any future errors I find) because to hell with it, this story needs to move on and be completed and I don't want to bother you any more with complaints about little editing mishaps.
But one last thing, because I can't resist...
> her pants coming out
> pants
yes, pants!
I... I don't see any other comments on this chapter about this reference. How is that possible?
I forgot to mention, I finished reading this one late last week. Here's the start of Act Two
1597183 And the punchline is that she can be sent back but can't change the future at all.
Hmmm. I have an idea of where this is going.
Why the heck would they be able to trap you if you are a spirit and know magic?!