Starbound

by Nagmeister

Prologue: The Help

"C'mon, Screwtaloo! Catch me if you can!"

The brown pegasus colt threw a stick at the orange pony before flying off in a bout of laughter. But Scootaloo didn't mind; months of bullying had left her immune. Still, she had to admit, the prospect of being unable to fly for the rest of her life was not something she enjoyed. She'd spent countless nights pondering why the universe had chosen her to be so unfortunate, of course; she was the only pegasus in Ponyville who couldn't fly, and got all the more hate for it. Thankfully, her parents were at least supportive of her through her condition, even if they kept up an air of uncaring and distaste at her condition around other ponies. But this just wasn't enough; she was a pegasus, born to fly, and some cosmic roll of the dice had decided that this pony just wouldn't be able to.

She'd tried many things, of course. She had done everything from sticking bedsheets to her wings and trying to fly to making a complex contraption out of cloth and wood to attempt to produce enough lift to fly. All had ended in failure, each more spectacular than the last. And still she persevered; for a pony with such an impossible goal as making a flightless pony fly must either be insane or driven enough to keep going in the face of adversity, and she was pretty sure she was both.

Nevertheless, she continued on her walk. These early morning walks through town helped clear her mind, and they allowed her a stopover at Twilight's castle, where she'd have a chat with her favorite adult friend about various things, from her latest prototypes to what they'd had for breakfast that morning. Both hers and Twilight's friends tended to pop up at some point during these discussions, usually a few minutes before Scootaloo had to leave. As she walked through the mostly-abandoned streets, the tower of the castle loomed in the distance, a gargantuan crystal spire dominating the skyline of the small town.

Eventually, she came to the massive doors of the tower. Knocking three times, she was greeted by a guard, who indifferently grunted as he let her in. She ran underneath the guard's outstretched hoof, garnering a momentary look of mild confusion that quickly faded to a poker face. She kept running until she came to a pair of doors with Twilight's cutie mark engraved on them. She knocked on the door in a rhythmic pattern three times before plopping down on her flanks and waiting.

After a few minutes, Twilight answered the door. She had a tired look on her face, probably due to having just woken up. She regarded the filly with a tired gaze before her eyes lit up almost imperceptibly.

"Ah! Scootaloo! Good morning!" she said with a slight grin. "Have you made any progress with that assignment of yours?"

"Assignment? Oh, yeah!" Scootaloo barely managed to salvage her half-lie. She'd used Twilight for math help under the pretense that it was for an assignment; in actuality, it was her trying to determine the surface area of her next design. She'd deduced that the problem with all her previous designs was that there wasn't enough surface area; but she still felt as if something was missing. She was a pioneer in her field, after all; nopony else had tried what she was attempting to do.

She produced the sketches she'd made for the design from the folds of her wing, checking and rechecking her calculations. It was a cloth and wood airframe, like the previous designs. It had a wingspan of four meters, and had a tail protruding about a meter behind the main wing. After the first few test flights, it had been deemed that a vertical tail was necessary; every time without one, she'd just gone into a flatspin all while falling towards the ground. Checking the design once more, she felt something was wrong again.

"What's that, Scootaloo?" Twilight asked, noticing the filly glaring furtively at the drawings.

"Nothing!" Scootaloo said, quickly hiding the small notepad. "I didn't have anything!"

"You're not fooling anyone, Scootaloo. I just want to help you with whatever you're doing."

"You wouldn't understand it anyway. Nopony would."

"Come on, just show it to me."

"It doesn't make any sense," she said bitterly.

"Come on, I just want to take a peek at it."

"Fine." the filly said, realizing she wasn't going to win this one. "Just don't tell anypony about it, especially those idiot bullies."

"Oh, don't worry. If it's anything private or embarrassing, I wouldn't breathe a word of it."

As Scootaloo produced the notebook again, showing its contents to Twilight, the purple pony mused over it, idly flipping through the pages.

"Hmm..." Princess Twilight murmured to herself. "This is... strange. What on earth are these cloth things for? And why is there just a random piece sticking up out of the back? What are these wires for?"

"Here, let me show you. I call this a glider; at least, that's what it would be if it worked. These are supposed to act like pegasus wings," she said, gesturing to the larger cloth-and-wood surfaces. "So, I gave them the same name. This here is supposed to keep it from turning too much," she said, gesturing towards the vertical piece. "These wires here are supposed to be hooked up to the neck and head of the wearer, and if I set it up correctly it should pivot here -" she gestured to the front of the vertical piece connected to two wires - "and stabilize it kinda like the fins on an arrow. These -" she pointed to the horizontal mini-wings - "are supposed to let you raise or lower in the air."

"This is... incredible. I'm surprised a pony your age could come up with such amazing fantasies. But one question; have you gotten anything working yet?"

"My last rig's controls worked well-enough, at least until I tried to turn it." She began to mutter under her breath. "Stupid freakin' wings, breaking right when I tried to pitch up."

"Shouldn't you have some structural reinforcements here?" Twilight said. "I mean, these seem kinda flimsy."

"Wouldn't work," Scootaloo replied. "Too flimsy. And what would you know about this, anyway? You haven't even seen it for more than a few seconds."

"I've seen enough to know that if you're actually trying to make this look like it could potentially fly, it looks way too weak to ever do it."

"That's not the biggest problem with it." Scootaloo suddenly said.

"What?"

"The design's completely broken."

"What do you mean?"

"It doesn't produce any lift; it flies about as well as a wood plank dropped sideways. I've been trying all I can to make it work, but nothing's getting it to stay up longer than a few seconds; and each time it lands, either it breaks itself or it breaks me."

"Are you sure it's a good idea to keep trying this, then? You might get seriously injured!"

"And if I don't keep trying, I'll be stuck a flightless pegasus for eternity!" Scootaloo suddenly shouted. "I'm not going to live the rest of my days as a useless dodo without doing something about it!"

"Scootaloo, there's plenty of jobs that a pony like you could do! With talents like these, you could be -"

"Something that a unicorn or earth pony would be better at, and be cheaper to use, too? Nobody's going to hire a worthless pony like me; all I can do with my life is to try and do something about it."

"You could work here in the castle! I would be more than willing -"

"No offense, Princess, but you wouldn't have much use for me. And with my tendency to break things, I'd be more of a liability than an asset. Honestly, like this I'm completely worthless unless I can get this to work."

"Fine. Fine." Twilight finally said. "If you want to do this, at least let me help you."

"You already know everything I've been trying to keep a secret; you know what? Buck it. Might as well have somepony to help with the heavy lifting."

"I'm always here if you need me, Scootaloo. Just come here if you need anything. Now let's get this put away; I think your friends will be here soon."

"Thanks." Scootaloo said quietly as she took the notebook back.