Scootaloo tugged a feather out of her wing, spitting it onto the ground as she and her two friends walked down a shaded path. “Bluh, what the heck’s going on?” she asked, glancing over at Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. “All my feathers are coming loose.” She pulled another feather out with her teeth.
“Oh!” said Apple Bloom suddenly. “I’ve seen this before with our chickens!”
Sweetie Belle raised a sarcastic eyebrow. “Apple Bloom knows something. Stop the presses.”
“Oh, hardy har,” said Apple Bloom, rolling her eyes. She turned to Scootaloo. “It looks like you’re molting. At least, that’s what happens to the chickens when they lose their feathers.”
Scootaloo spat a mouthful of feathers on to the ground. “So, like, they’re gonna grow back, right? I don’t think I could live my life as a cripple.”
“You wouldn’t be a cripple. You just wouldn’t have feathers,” said Sweetie Belle.
“Is that any kind of life to live!?” Scootaloo shouted, her mouth full of feathers.
Sweetie Belle held up her hooves. “Calm down, Elijah Price. I’m just saying it probably wouldn’t be that bad.”
“Well, anyway,” said Scootaloo as she turned to Apple Bloom. “What am I supposed to do now that I’m molting?”
Shrugging, Apple Bloom said, “Beats me. Usually we just leave the chickens alone, and they get better.”
Scootaloo started rubbing against a tree, scratching her wings and causing more feathers to fall out. “It itches like crap. Ya think there’s something I can do about it?”
“Hey, Fluttershy has chickens too, right?” asked Sweetie Belle. “And she’s a pegasus too. Maybe she can help you?”
Running her back up and down the tree, Scootaloo started to notice that in addition to her feathers falling out, her fur was now coming out in clumps too. “Yeah, and sooner is probably better than later. I’m starting to think this isn’t just molting.”
Apple Bloom’s eyes went wide as she saw that Scootaloo now looked like a dog stricken with mange. “I’ve never seen the chickens look like that. Let’s hurry up and get to Fluttershy’s house.”
By the time the three fillies had reached Fluttershy’s house, Scootaloo’s skin was bare, and her wings were featherless lumps. She looked like a pink little turkey right before it gets thrown in the oven.
Sweetie Belle rapped her hoof against the door. “Fluttershy! Fluttershy!”
It only took a second before the door swung open. Fluttershy had a crazed look in her eye, and she let out a gasp, covering her mouth with a hoof.
“Philomena! Oh, thank Celestia you’re back! I was so worried you’d run away forever.” She grabbed Scootaloo and pulled her inside, offering a quick, “Thank you, girls!” before slamming the door shut behind her.
“Philo-who? No, I’m—”
Fluttershy shoved a bowl of soup in Scootaloo’s face, forcing the liquid down her throat. “Here, drink this. I was worried sick about you, Philomena. Just worried sick.” Pulling a blanket down from the back of a chair, she slung it around Scootaloo and wrapped her up tightly.
Scootaloo tried to protest, but the blanket was pressed against her face, making it so she could only make vague muffled noises, none of which seemed to get through to Fluttershy who was busy filing a glass of water at the sink.
As she brought the water over to Scootaloo, she produced a pair of small pills from wherever ponies keep things. “Do you want the red pill, or the blue pill?”
Scootaloo tried to shake her head, but Fluttershy just gave a laugh that was somehow both adorable and frightening.
“I’m just kidding. You have to take both.” She then popped the pills in Scootaloo’s mouth and put the glass of water up to her lips, keeping it there until the filly had finished swallowing the pills. Patting Scootaloo on the back, she said, “There, there, Philomena. Now you’ll be all better.”
Scootaloo, despite Fluttershy’s encouraging words, was not, in fact, feeling all better. She felt her throat tightening, and there was a burning in her chest. She tried to wriggle her way out of the blanket swaddle, but her strength was quickly fading. As the world started to turn black around her, she used the last of her breath to curse Fluttershy through the blanket.
As Scootaloo slumped to the ground, Fluttershy gasped again. “Wait, you’re not Philomena!” She tore the blanket off. “Scootaloo?” She nudged Scootaloo, and, receiving no response, she gulped, putting the blanket back over her.
“So, Twilight, that’s how I accidentally killed Scootaloo,” said Fluttershy before sipping from a cup of tea. “And I want to stress accidentally.”
“What kind of medicine did you give her?” asked Twilight, holding her hoof out.
“Oh, it’s a special medicine that heals birds, but is incredibly deadly to any other animal or pony,” said Fluttershy matter-of-factly.
“Why would you even have something like that?”
Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying you don’t have medicine specifically designed to kill non-ponies?”
Twilight opened her mouth to protest, then put her hoof down and said, “Fair enough.”
Oh the glorious pony master
racespecies.That's one heck of a rabbit hole Scoots just went down.
I just hope that Flutters realizes she just ticked off an undying Scoots.
Seems you almost hate Applebloom just as much as Scoots, but not quite.
...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Wait, is Twilight...
...nah.
is it just me, or do all the ponies (that don't know she'll come back alive) not seem to care for any of her deaths? I mean, they just shrug it off like 'oh, I killed scootaloo... whatevers.' also why was scootaloo losing her fur and feathers and junk?
I'd rather have seen you follow through with that Matrix reference and have Scootaloo get gunned down by Pony Agent Smith.
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4256455 Scootaloo's a Time Lord. She regenerates.
Considering what was happening to Scoots, I think she might have lucked out on this one.
4256558
I could have sworn Time Lords had some kind of limit to regenerations. Maybe they don't and the series will go on forever.
4253967 Perhaps a little dose of farcium and satiricide to thin the aqueous humor which has clearly vitrified in the presence of puns?
4256574 The Master has regenerated at least a billion times now.
Huh, so the medicine Flutters gave Scoots heals all birds, but it kills all non-birds.
All chickens are birds.
The medicine killed Scoots, ergo Scoots is a non-bird, and cannot therefore be a chicken.
LOGIC!!
Cockatrices are not really birds, therefore Scoots could still potentially be a cockatrice...
4256558 ik but some of the ponies that don't know she regenerates just don't care. And in the beginning too when they all didn't know, nopony cared
4256653 No, scootaloo is a chicken, she is just a rare species that pony science medical vet people haven't studied, so therefore there is still the possibility that she is a chicken. and she wouldn't be a cockatrice or all her friends would be stone.
LOGIC!!
4256455
pony cancer.
4256665 That is illogical. It violates the stated facts that all chickens are birds and the medicine heals all birds and kills all non-birds.
4256736 Well I just looked up the definition of bird and one of the definitions was-
Slang. a person, especially one having some peculiarity: He's a queer bird.
So they probably meant bird in this kind of way, therefore making Scootaloo a chicken in disguise.
4256670 You mean chicken cancer
4256764 In that case, Fluttershy has been poisoning all her birds...
4256670 Pony cancer is saddest cancer.
4256829 no wonder she doesn't get any petsitting jobs
4256670
I thought hair loss in cancer patients was caused by chemotherapy. Maybe Scootaloo was exposed to radiation?
4256659 I'm pretty sure it was common knowledge long before Episode 1. Scootaloo's first death probably occurred one or two years prior and word of an immortal pegasus spread through Equestria like wildfire, so now everyone's okay with it.
4257794 Well maybe it wasn't common knowledge. Maybe they somehow kept it a secret!
...I want to read a chapter where Twilight poisons everypony now
Fluttershy is a killer
4256765
is it like the distant relative to mad cow disease? or
like the complete opposite of sweetie belle/pinchy adorableness, where the pony becomes bald and is mistaken for a very old pheonix?
4261846 Yup, exactly like that. they loose all their hair/feathers and if she were to live long enough she would have grown a beak
4262848
you'd think zomeone would've noticed infinite lives as a curse than a gift...
4263230 welp, its a gift for a while, then I suppose it does end up as a curse, but if you think about it, she seems to die almost every day? So she probably would have died at a very young age had she not been able to regenerate. So its all a matter of perspective and opinion.
Best. Line.
4256592
... Okay, I have to respect that one. That was brilliant.
4270137 Yes it was. I drank enough wine to make me loopy enough to think straight!
*Alondro's mind works in mysterious ways...*
4270734
Strange ways are the best ways
join the pinkie
be one with the party
Well, at least she didn't meet up with Agent Smith.
Are we even sure it was the medicine? She probably died of what she had at the beginning.
Dat reference!
Scoots was having a bad hair day. Fluttershy couldn't 'bare' to see her end that way.
Lame pun aside, didn't Fluttershy already watch Scootaloo drown in quicksand once? I guess Scoot's death didn't leave much of an impact on her and she forgot about it or something.
4263230 Speaking of infinite lives being a curse: Where is Scootaloo's Darksign located and where does she store all of her Humanities/Human Effigies?
Also, if she's using Humanities where is the Bonfire she resurrects and restores humanity at?
Poor scoots
4256736
What about bird-hybrids?
Griffons are part lion, part eagle--so would Fluttershy's medicine kill a griffon or not? Or only kill them halfway?
Logically, we can extend the analogy--pegasi are part horse, part bird....
of course, that throws up a whole slew of new questions--do griffons and pegasi lay eggs or give birth to their young? Or does it happen only halfway with that, too?
4725996
reminds me of "crazy future" by "vavacung" on DeviantArt where Applejack had a "dark-souls" style bonfire...