Over Yonder

by theNDinspector

Chapter 7: An Awkward Evening

After a reinvigorating meal and shower, Scootaloo and Blue Yonder finally made it back to the barracks—where their only other roommate was waiting.

“There you are,” Aurora said, looking up from her bunk at the far side of the room. “How’d the training go?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Scootaloo noticed that Blue Yonder had lowered her head in shame. Scootalo, meanwhile, grabbed her saddlebags and moved as far away from the bunk closest to the door as possible. Not feeling up to climbing up to the top, she took the bottom bunk of where Lavender used to sleep. It still had the faint flowery smell that followed Lavender—the bed’s previous occupant—everywhere, but was now somewhat bearable.

“That bad, eh?” Aurora asked.

Scootaloo slumped onto the bed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sorry.”

Scootaloo simply grumbled as she stretched on the bed, her aches and pains being relieved as she did so. Today had most certainly not been a good day. When she arrived, she thought that it would be a great reunion with the friends she made at the academy. Instead, it was a hectic display of just how far she had fallen behind and became disconnected with everypony.

Even the evening time at the barracks were a shadow of their former selves. Scootaloo remembered the laughter of several mares as they watched Blue Yonder struggle to get out of her uniform the first night, or the time when they found old pictures of past cadets. Now it was quiet, with one pony refusing to talk, another not looking anypony in the eye and the last stuck in between the previous two.

“So,” Aurora said awkwardly. “I guess I’ll just lay back down over here then.”

As Aurora got back into her bed, a thought came to Scootaloo. “Aurora, do you know anything about a Doctor Maud Pie?”

Aurora frowned and rubbed the side of her head. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

Scootaloo shrugged. “I just heard her on the radio at the infirmary and her name seemed familiar to me.”

“Oh, okay….wait, why were you in the infirmary?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Scootaloo turned around on her bed deep in thought. She knew only one other pony that had the name Pie—and apparently she had two or three sisters—but Scootaloo didn’t really know them. So why was this name so familiar to her? She struggled to find any sort of connection until she fell asleep.

***

Spitfire sighed as she finished the last of paperwork on her desk. She took off her reading glasses—which she was starting to rely on more and more in order to even see the small print—and rubbed her eyes.

“Why do I have to get old?” Spitfire groaned.

Knock knock knock

Spitfire straightened herself back up. “Enter.”

In walked one of the nurses from the infirmary who handed her some more paperwork. Spitfire sighed and put back on her glasses. The only thing she hated more than wearing glasses was wearing them in front of other ponies. She frowned as she read the name on the form.

“Why was Scootaloo in the infirmary today?”

“She collapsed during training today,” the nurse answered. “It wasn’t serious and she was better after a few minutes.”

“And why didn’t Major Soarin inform me of this?”

“Apparently Major Soarin had the two of them do a private training session, Ma’am.”

“I see. I guess I’ll have to talk with them in the morning. Thanks, dismissed.”

The Nurse walked back out after Spitfire signed the form. It wasn’t always this way; while she often acted as the Director of the Wonderbolt Academy in the past, she also had her own squadron and would fly in air shows all across Equestria and beyond. Unfortunately, a mistake and oversight on her part during the qualifying races at the Equestria Games many years ago seriously tarnished her reputation among many fans and fellow Wonderbolts. Soon, she found herself permanently working the glorified desk job at the Academy. Still, it was a job she loved and one that needed to be done, so it wasn’t all bad—even if it meant dealing with a lot of complaints from cadets about the program.

Spitfire looked at her desk. Amongst the paperwork, name plaque and flying pegasus statue, there was picture of the very first squadron that Spitfire was in command of. She picked it up to get a better look at it.

Alongside Spitfire were two stallions—Soarin and a steel-blue stallion named Cool Breeze—and two mares. The first mare looked almost exactly like Spitfire except for her mane, which was a solid orange as opposed to two tones. Spitfire knew this mare better than anypony since it was her very own twin sister, Blaze—which made for some very interesting interactions as a squad leader.

The last mare was a very…bizarre case. She was white with a curly yellow mane, purple eyes and five purple balloons for her cutie mark. She had the composure of an overexcited puppy at just about everything and loved to sneak up on ponies and just wait for them to almost say her name before popping up out of nowhere and shout it—often with a bunch of confetti. She was such a character that Spitfire thought she was one-of-a-kind, until she met a pink earth pony who had almost the exact same traits. Yet, despite that fact, Spitfire always enjoyed this mare’s antics, even if they seemed extremely inappropriate at times. In fact, the millisecond before this picture was taken, the white mare had donned on a party hat, clown nose and held the biggest, goofiest grin she could muster.

Spitfire chuckled. “Oh Surprise, you were such a hoofful, weren’t you?”

Almost all of them had gone their separate ways now: Soarin still worked with Spitfire at the academy, Cool Breeze was discharged due to a family hardship, Blaze was captain of her own Wonderbolt squadron, and Surprise was working at the Wonderbolt Reserves. It was definitely very quiet in Spitfire’s life without all of them around on a regular basis, but times change and ponies move on to different roles in life.

Spitfire looked up to the clock and was shocked to see that it was now about thirty minutes before Light’s-Out. Even though she could stay up past that—being the commanding officer and all—she preferred to keep herself on the same schedule as the rest of the cadets as much as possible.

Setting the picture back in its place, Spitfire got up, turned off the lights and left the office for her private quarters. There was a lot of work that needed to be done the next day, and she needed as much sleep as she could get.

Author's Note:

A shout out to Metool Bard for the creation of the character known as Blaze. I highly recommend you read the Bard's tales, particularly My Little Investigations: Wonderbolts Under Fire—which not only contain awesome characters like Spitfire, Blaze, and Surprise, but is also the beginning of a fantastic series.