In case you need it
Flying from the Wonderbolts’ training facility to the edge of the Everfree Forest took the better part of two hours. It would have been less, but Scootaloo kept pestering Rainbow Dash to do a corkscrew so she could enjoy her own personal carnival ride, and because hearing Scootaloo laugh with glee had become Rainbow’s favorite sound, she happily indulged the orange filly riding on her neck, holding on for dear life.
After a quick trot through the forest, the pair found themselves at Zecora’s hut.
“Greetings, Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo. What can I do for the two of you?” the zebra said as she opened the door.
“Hey, Zecora, how much do you know about flying? I’m trying to get Scoots here up in the air.” Rainbow asked, not wasting any time with small talk.
“Throughout my travels, I’ve learned many things, but I’m somewhat ignorant when it comes to wings,” the zebra replied.
“C’mon, all that stuff you have in here and you don’t have anything that can help Scoots fly?” Rainbow pleaded.
“Potions can cure many ills, from hot fevers to cold chills. But what you ask they cannot do;
I’m sorry to say that is true.”
“Poison joke made Applejack shrink, there’s nothing that can make Scootaloo’s wings grow?” Rainbow asked in disbelief.
“Young Scootaloo is how she was meant to be; no pony can change that, not even me. I cannot help her learn to fly, but that does not mean she should not try,” Zecora responded solemnly, but with a reassuring smile directed at Scootaloo.
“Okay, thanks anyway, Zecora,” Scootaloo mumbled.
As they left the cottage empty-hoofed, Scootaloo looked up at Rainbow Dash with still hopeful eyes. “So, now what? Are we going to Canterlot to see if Princess Celestia can do some super awesome magic that will help me fly?”
Rainbow Dash tried to hide her disappointment. She figured that between the Wonderbolts and Zecora, one of them would have had an answer for her.
She let out a sigh. “Not tonight, Scoots. I’ve got a night shift, which means you’re hanging out with Rarity and Sweetie Belle for a few hours.”
Rainbow Dash usually didn’t mind her night shift duties. More often than not, clouds didn’t need to be busted at night because there was no sun for them to block out, and ponies were less apt to complain about a storm when they were safely inside their homes. If it weren’t for the fact that working a night shift regularly would make it hard to see her friends, she would have signed up for them a long time ago.
However, because most of the ponies in Ponyville were socially oriented, night shift duties were pretty unpopular with the weather patrol staff, and as such the weather patrol tended to operate with a skeleton crew during those hours. Most of the time this wasn’t an issue, but when a Class 5 Everfree storm started brewing, and Rainbow Dash was the only flyer on duty who was cleared to fly in such adverse conditions, it meant that she had to spend her entire shift plus three hours of overtime flying around a lighting storm, busting up clouds and trying to avoid flying debris. She wasn’t able to eliminate the storm: the clouds were forming too quickly and the winds were too high for that, but she was able keep it manageable, though the effort necessary, even for a flyer of her caliber, left her drained. Suffice it to say that when she finally clocked out, she was exhausted and more than a little irritable.
On her way to pick up Scootaloo from the Carousel Boutique, Rainbow Dash noticed that a light in the library was on, and because she hadn’t had any success in her efforts earlier in the day, she figured that it couldn’t hurt to check in with Twilight.
“Hey, Twi, tell me you have some good news,” Rainbow said as she walked through the door, which was Twilight’s first clue that something was bothering her friend. The library was a mess, with books strewn about haphazardly, and behind Twilight’s desk were several chalkboards filled with graphs and formulas, of which Rainbow Dash couldn’t make heads or tails..
Twilight herself, looked even more frazzled than when she had tried to figure out how ‘Pinkie Sense’ worked, with stray hairs from her mane sticking out randomly and bags under her eyes. Twilight caught her reflection in a window and quickly set about trying to tame her unruly hairdo. “Sorry, Rainbow. I had Spike write to the University in Cloudsdale. They said they’d send over their research, but it isn’t much. You were right when you said that there isn’t a lot of study about how to lift off. All they had was two papers from a couple years ago. I wrote to the scientist who conducted the study but they said their funding was pulled so they could ‘focus on more important projects’.”
“So, that’s it? There’s nothing else we can do?”
“Of course not. It just means that we have to do the research ourselves. Luckily, Celestia doesn’t have me working on anything else right now.”
“Well, how much longer is it going to take?”
“I don’t know, Rainbow. I’ve got some theories. Give me a few days, and maybe I can come up with some working hypotheses. Then, I can test them, and depending on how those experiments turn out, I might be able to form a preliminary answer to why Scootaloo can’t fly. But, even if I figure it out, there’s no guarantee that I can do anything about it. Pegasi have been flying or not flying for thousands of years before I came along.
“Well, darn it, Twi, what good is all that egghead stuff if you can’t use it to help your friends?”
“Science and magic are just tools, Rainbow; they can’t fix everything. You know that,” she said gently.
“Not at this rate, anyway,” Rainbow said before exiting the library in a huff. If Twilight didn’t have any news, there was no point in sticking around.
She was about to take off when she heard a sharp voice behind her. “You’re not being fair, ya know,” Rainbow turned around to see Spike glaring at her. Spike was a lot of things, usually different things to different ponies, but the one thing that every pony could agree on was that he was fiercely protective of his boss/caregiver/mother/whatever-relationship-you-wanted-to-assign Twilight. “Twilight’s been reading day and night since you asked for her help. I’ve sent letters to universities in Cloudsdale, Manehattan and Fillydelphia, not to mention Saddle Arabia and Brismane, requesting any research any of them have on topics that might even be partially related to flight. Tomorrow, I’m going to Canterlot to scour the royal library for any books on flight, pegasi and physics that we don’t have. So, maybe instead of criticizing her, you could say ‘thank you’.”
Rainbow Dash sighed; just because Spike’s disapproval was borne out of a desire to defend Twilight didn’t mean he was wrong. “You’re right, Spike. It’s just that I’ve gotten used to the idea that Twilight can fix anything. Need to save a kingdom from an army of changelings? Twilight’s on it. Need to figure out who ate some cake on a train? Call Twi again. If she can’t help me, I don’t know what else to do.”
“She’ll figure something out; she always does,” the dragon said with a confidence that could only come from a place of unshakeable faith. “But in the meantime, she doesn’t the need extra pressure from her friend.”
Rainbow lowered her head and slowly turned around and carefully entered the library. When she entered, Twilight looked up and tensed up ever so slightly. Before she could say anything, Rainbow spoke,“Hey, Twi…um, I’m not sure if I’ve thanked you for everything you’ve done so far. I’m lucky to have a friend who’s willing to do all this for me.”
Twilight smiled and relaxed, “It’s okay, Rainbow Dash; I know you’re worried. But listen, I’ve studied magic for a long time and the first thing I learned was that magic has rules, and I may not know much about pegasi magic, but it has to have rules too. If I can figure them out, I can figure out why Scoots can’t fly.”
“What about Pinkie?” Rainbow asked with a smirk.
“Pinkie doesn’t count!”
“Yes I do~,” a familiar voice chirped from nowhere.
Twilight took a deep breath. “Other than Pinkie, all magic has rules. There’s an answer somewhere in this mess and I’m going to find it.”
“I know you will, but maybe you should take a break. I’ve gotta go pick up Scoots, but then, I’ll bet we could convince Applejack to part with some cider.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll stay here. I’m working on the idea that maybe pegasi are able to control magnetic fields by some sort of latent energy manipulation. It would explain how you’re able to generate lighting in storm clouds.
“Okay... you’ll let me know if you find anything, right?”
“You’ll be the first pony I write.”
After setting things right with Twilight, Rainbow Dash quickly flew over to Carousel Boutique, mentally preparing herself for a lecture from Rarity about the importance of being on time, and how she didn’t have an extra three and a half hours to spend babysitting a filly who was Rainbow’s responsibility; she was taken aback when instead of being greeted with a scolding, she opened the door only to find Scootaloo sprinting toward her at full bore. Reflexively, she sat down and caught the filly as she leapt toward her; as soon as Scoots was secured in her forelegs, Rainbow Dash felt, surprisingly, a harsh trembling rocking in her forelegs.
She wasn’t sure why the orange filly was scared, but she knew that that kind of trembling could only be brought on by real, deep-in-your-bones, fear. She briefly flashed back to a lecture she had to sit through as a Wonderbolt recruit. They said that you shiver when you are scared because of your auto-something nervous system. She remembered what the instructor emphasized as his next point: You will shake because it’s ingrained in your wiring. There’s nothing you can do about it so don’t try to fight it; the only thing you can do is ride it out. Those words echoing in her head, she held onto the trembling filly and squeezed her reassuringly. “Hey squirt,” she whispered into Scootaloo’s ear as the filly let out a small whine and buried herself into Rainbow’s chest.
It was only then that she looked up and saw Rarity, Sweetie Belle and, to her surprise, Fluttershy standing in the parlor room. “‘Shy? What are you doing here?”
“There was a storm in the Everfree Forest and it was pretty strong so I decided to come here til it died down.”
“Tell me about it, I’ve been out dealing with that thing since I clocked in.”
“We thought you might have been out in this weather,” Rarity said gesturing to Scootaloo, who was still clinging to Rainbow Dash as though she might fly away at any moment.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to scare to her. I didn’t know you were working tonight. I just mentioned that the storm looked pretty bad when I left and then when you were late…” Fluttershy’s voice trailed off.
“It’s okay ‘Shy. And hey squirt, I’m kinda offended here. You thought some puny little storm could keep me down, what’s up with that?”Rainbow said, hoping her bravado could help ameliorate Scootaloo’s fear.
To her great relief Scootaloo giggled for a second but also made no effort to extricate herself from Rainbow’s forelegs. “Whatdya say we get out of here kid?” Rainbow asked, making sure to keep the orange filly firmly cradled.
Scootaloo nodded, and climbed on Rainbows back, making sure to keep her grip secure. She mumbled a brief goodbye and thank you to Rarity. Dash noded at her friends, she figured they would have to talk about this later, but for now it could wait.
-------------
“You okay, kid? I didn’t mean to scare you back there.” Rainbow said as soon as Scootaloo climbed down off her back once they were back home.
Scootaloo spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. “Fluttershy said there was a storm, and then you weren’t… you were late. My dad died in a storm. He wasn’t even on weather patrol or anything. He was just trying to get to Cloudsdale…”
“I didn’t- I didn’t know that, Scoots.”
“I don’t like to talk about it much,” Scootaloo said, staring intently at the ground.
“Nothing gets better if you ignore it,” Rainbow offered gently.
Scootaloo shut her eyes and shook her head, trying to block out the painful memories. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, trying to fight back the wave of anguish she could feel building
Rainbow flinched at the sight of the one filly she cared about more than anypony else in pain. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Hey, um... it’s getting late. How ‘bout we go get ready for bed?” Rainbow asked, hoping the distraction would provide Scoots some respite.
“Okay, but, um... I think I should sleep in my own room tonight,”
Rainbow frowned slightly. “You don’t need to prove anything to me.”
“I know, but I think maybe I need to prove some things to myself.”
Rainbow nodded, one brave pegasus to another. “I can understand that. Do you still want a bedtime story?”
Scootaloo nodded. “If that’s okay?”
“Of course, it is”
After a few more chapters of Daring Do and the Forest of Fear (an oddly appropriate choice considering the circumstances), Rainbow made sure Scootaloo was tucked in securely and ruffled her mane gently. She stole a glance at the young pegasus and recognized the look that was currently illustrated plainly on her face. It was the same one she’d seen in the mirror too many times: I’m scared but I don’t want anypony to know. “You alright, Scoots?” Scootaloo nodded without saying a word, her jaw held tight. Rainbow twisted around and plucked a feather from her wing, wincing as she pulled it out. “Here, just in case you need it. It’s a courage feather.”
“Pegasi don’t have ‘courage feathers’,” Scootaloo responded.
“Sure we do,” Rainbow said, grinning as she tucked the cyan feather behind Scootaloo’s ear. “I have a bunch, because I’m awesome like that. Not that you need it, but maybe if you ever did need a little bit extra courage, just tuck that feather in your wing, and boom, instant bravery.”
Scootaloo smiled at Rainbow’s painfully transparent attempt to make her feel better. “Okay,” she replied with the same tight jaw and determination Rainbow read on her face previously.
Rainbow leaned in and gave Scootaloo one last hug before heading to her own bed, making sure to leave her door unlocked just in case somepony wanted to come in at any point during the night.
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Believe me, I understand what you mean when it comes to Zecora and rhyming dialogue.
I am working on my own MLP story, one that is to focus on many characters, and I dread having to write Zecora's part
(I am almost tempted to just have her speak normally, with the joke that the rhyming is just a habit of hers, or something.)
That, or I may need to get myself a rhyming dictionary (you may need to try that, too.)
4503088 I considered a brief plot line where zecora is exposed to poison joke and its effect on her is that it makes her talk normally
Just a few things that I noticed were amiss in the grammar department. Other than that, though, great chapter
4503187 That does sound like the logical thing to happen (except, Zecora is quite knowledgeable at the plant and it's effects, so it seems unlikely that she would get infected without outside interference..such as Applebloom screwing around in her work shop.)
Another "excuse" fan have clung to get Zecora to talk normally is a bump on the head.
example being a fan comic I once saw where Zecora USED to speak normally..until the Sonic Rainboom, where she fell out of a tree and began speaking in rhyme due to a head trauma.
That could also work out for you: "Another" rap on the noggin, and Zecora stops the whole Mother Goose act.
Nice chapter, I'm glad Spike spoke up about Rainbow's behavior. I loved Scootaloo tackling Rainbow at the door, very cute. I also would love it if the Courage Feather turns out to be key in Twilight discovering the secret of getting Scootaloo to fly, this making it similar to Dumbo's feather.
Zecora's words are cast in rhyme,
But rarely should it cause
A problem with her speech. In time,
There's little need to pause
When writing down a zebra's word:
It can be moved about
Creating cadence as preferred,
To help an author out.
So be no stunned neigh-sayer
When you're faced with what to write.
The script can trend to greyer
When the speaker's black and white.
Pretty sure that extra cold isn't needed
Glad to see another chapter and I get a feeling the next chapter will involve scoots having a nightmare where dash is in a storm just like her dad was.
This is post Discord's reform, right?
Though am I alone in wondering if Scoot's issue is psychological, given the death of her father and how she reacted Rainbow being late? Though the way she enjoys riding the Rainbow complicates that theory.
4504964 Augh, ABAB is so boring. Plus I think Zecora goes AABB.
4506172 This is post discord reformation, pre season 4 finale. But I'll just say right now I have another story involving discord and scootaloo so he won't be making an appearance in this one.
4506196 If A-A-B-B types of rhyme
Are what you're after, there's no crime
In switching of the words about
To get the central meaning out!
4509609 No thats....also lame...All I said was that I think thats how she does it.
Not sure if I just read this one faster or what but the pace seemed quite a bit faster than the previous chapters. Was that just me?
move one space past the ";".
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till
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Space after the quote mark.
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Yeah, Zecora looks like she'd be a pain to write.
Your Zecora dialogue was pretty simple, but you didn't need to have her spout any kind of magic or alchemical babble. I've seen worse Zecora dialogue in otherwise fine stories.
end " marks.
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can't
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sorry I missed those my first time reading through. Anyways, you're Zecora wasn't that bad.
“Other than Pinkie, all magic has rules"
It was clearly established in "Feeling Pinkie Keen" that Pinkie's abilities DO operate by some sort of rules. Twilight was just never able to figure them about because her scientific process was bad from the start. She didn't want to find out the truth, she wanted to prove that her preconceived notions were correct.
Well geeze! That was mean!
5012013
Um...no.
Rainbow Dash has gotten used to the idea that Twilight can fix anything.
Not Rainbow Dash has gotten used to the idea that Twilight can't fix anything.
Now...if we were talking about Trixie, than I could see that.
But what you ask they cannot do; I’m sorry to say that is true.”
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needs end " marks.
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The courage feather bit was adorable.
7038228
Herpa Derp on my part XD. Thanks for the catch
.
I thought you did fairly well at writing Zecora
9029608
Thank You