So, Your Pegasus Filly Needs Some Encouragement
(Lesson Two-Motivating a discouraged filly is never easy. But a little loving encouragement goes a long way)
Today was the day. Scootaloo whistled happily to herself as she as she scooted along the road. Random ponies got out of the way as she rode down the path towards the field just outside Ponyville.
Today, Rainbow Dash had finally agreed to teach her to fly. Scootaloo slowed her scooter as she came to the expanse of grass. Dash was already there, with a whistle around her neck and wearing a cap. She smiled at the younger pegasus. Scootaloo hopped off her scooter and ran up to Dash, latching her arms around her neck.
“Thank you for agreeing to teach me Dash! Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!”
Dash ruffled Scootaloo’s mane. “Take it easy, Kiddo. Of course I’d make time to teach my number one fan! Now, let’s see what you can do.”
“Well, I can’t do anything.” Scootaloo sheepishly admitted.
“Of course you can do something.” Dash protested. “I’ve seen you hover when you’re excited about something.”
“Well, sure I can do that. But that’s not flying. I want to fly.”
“Well, try to hover. Let’s see what ya got.”
With a buzz of her wings Scootaloo lifted into the air. Her wings buzzed desperately as she tried to keep herself above the ground. Dash mentally calculated how long she stayed in the air. Sweat broke out on Scootaloo’s face as her wings began to tire.
She fought the tiredness. Her wings were burning, but she tried to keep in the air. She grimaced as her fragile wings finally gave out. Dash caught her in her hooves and set her down. Scootaloo looked down.
“Thirty seconds. Not bad, kiddo.”
“Whatever.” Scootaloo replied.
“No really, that’s good for a beginner.” Dash assured her. “Not everypony can be as awesome as me. Can I see your wings?”
“Sure.”
Dash went behind her and took Scootaloo’s little orange wings in her grasp. She stroked and caressed each feather, running her hooves through them. Many of the feathers were twisted or broken. Scootaloo winced as Dash’s hooves reached the most sensitive areas.
“Scootaloo, when did you preen last?”
“Um…”
“If you can’t remember it’s too long.”
“What’s it matter? I can’t fly.”
“Proper wing care is the first step to learning how to fly. Most pegasii your age preening by themselves. Still, my mom would have thrown a fit if my wings had ever looked like this. Not that they ever did.”
“Are they really that bad?”
“Gotta be honest with ya, Squirt. Feathers this bad could be the whole reason you can’t fly yet.”
“Really?” Scootaloo asked.
“Yeah.”
“Um, can you preen them? It hurts when I do it.”
Seven-fire alarm bells went off in Dash’s head. Preening wasn’t supposed to hurt. For most pegasii, preening was a happy and relaxing activity. Mothers preened their foals to comfort them. Mutual preening was considered the height of intimacy and love, done between close friends and lovers. She even had preening sessions with Fluttershy.
“Scootaloo, could you show me how you preen?”
Scootaloo reached behind herself and struggled to reach her tiny wings. Finally she bit down on a feather and yanked it out. Dash winced.
“Stop. Just stop. Have your parents ever shown you how to preen?”
“They’re both earth ponies. They don’t know how.”
“That’s not an excuse. Heck, I showed Pinkie and Mrs. Cake how to preen Pound Cake.”
Scootaloo shuffled a hoof. “I sometimes think my parents don’t want me to fly. My dad…” She trailed off.
“Your dad what?”
“Nothing, never mind.”
“What does your dad do?”
“He says I can’t be his daughter. That Mommy is a lying horse.”
Dash had a good idea of what Scootaloo’s dad really said.
“But he’s nice when he isn’t drunk!”
Dash gritted her teeth.
“Scootaloo, I’m going to preen you alright? I promise it won’t hurt.”
“Are you sure?”
Dash nodded and sat on the ground. She took Scootaloo in her lap and wrapped a wing around her, just like her mama used to do. Scootaloo nestled against her chest. Dash spent a few moments running her muzzle through Scootaloo’s right wing. Scootaloo nickered in pleasure.
“Oh, that feels good.”
“Preening is supposed to.” Dash told her, continuing to brush her muzzle through Scootaloo’s feathers. With each brush through she straightened any errant feathers. Then she began the task of pulling out the broken and old feathers. She’d gently take one of the broken or old feathers in her teeth and gently pluck them out.
Then she moved on to the next one. A few worms and parasites had settled into the wing. Dash pulled those out. They left bloodstains. Dash winced, but she continued the task. She gave the wing one final brush. She finally moved on to the left wing which was just as bad. She buried her muzzle into the wing, straightening Scootaloo’s crooked feathers. Scootaloo’s eyes grew heavy.
“Sleepy?”
“Hm.”
“I think this is a bit better than what you’re used to, huh?”
“Um-hm.”
Dash ran her muzzle through each feather, gently twisting off the old or broken ones.
“How do your wings feel?”
“Lighter.”
After the old, broken feathers were collected into a pile Dash went back and brushed the wings some more. Scootaloo nickered in contentment. Dash stood and Scootaloo hopped from her lap.
“That felt nice. Really nice.”
She flapped her wings and her eyes widened. “Whoa, they do feel light!”
“Yeah, the extra weight was dragging your wings down.”
“Does this mean I’ll be able to fly now?”
“It means you have a better chance at it. You’ll need to do some exercises though. Let me show’em to you.”
Dash lowered herself to the ground and hovered from the ground on the tips of her wings. Scootaloo lowered herself and imitated Dash’s
stance. Her wings trembled.
“Now, we’re going to go down like this.”
Dash lowered herself. Scootaloo followed and with a grunt of effort she lifted herself back up.
“Let’s do five of these.”
“Five?” Scootaloo asked. She was already sweating. “I can’t-”
“You what Scoots? I don’t know what that word means.”
She did a second wing-up. Scootaloo reluctantly followed. Her wings trembled with the effort of keeping her body suspended, but they didn’t give in. Together they did two more. Then Scootaloo steadied herself with her hoof.
“Just one more Scoots.”
“I can’t.”
“Okay. Two more.”
“I can’t.”
“You want to do three more? If you insist, Squirt.”
Scootaloo glared at her mentor then got back in position with Dash.
“You can do this Scoots.”
Scootaloo muttered something unkind about her mentor. Together they did the final wing-ups. After the eighth wing-up Scootaloo collapsed.
Her wings were aching. Her body was covered in sweat.
“How you feeling?” Dash asked. Scootaloo panted. Dash ruffled her mane.
“I don’t like the word can’t. Don’t say it around me. And you did three more than you thought you could didn’t you?”
Scootaloo grinned. “Yeah. Yeah, I did didn’t I?”
“Just do five a day every day. Then we can move up to ten.” Dash wrapped a hoof around her. "After every exercise, remember to stretch." She demonstrated by pushing her forelegs out, and then her back legs. She flared out her wings to their full extent.
Scootaloo observed her mentor and followed her, stretching out her much less impressive wings. Dash returned to her starting position. “Now I think somepony deserves some ice cream.”
“Yay!” Scootaloo jumped up, her tired spell mysteriously vanished.
“I was talking about myself, but you can come too.” Dash said, grinning and inviting Scootaloo to hop on her back. Scootaloo did and soon they were off to the ice cream store.
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Scootabuse....ugh. Still, I love this. It's adorable. I love seeing these two. Needs more fluff.
I think Rainbow should get a Princess to visit Scootaloo's house... I nominate Luna since the Royal Canterlot Voice seems appropriate for the occasion! If her father is that big a bastard he needs to be taken down... and tossed into prison where they don't take kindly to foal abusers.
feathers
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Either connect with above sentence or move down a line.
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You really need to fix the indentions in this chapter. Half of the fic is indented, the other half isn't.
Other than that, pretty good chapter. It's good to see it update.
6215247
You know, we've never seen Celestia use the Canterlot Royal Voice. And Twilight had to learn that "Turn into a raging Inferno-Pony" from someone. I think Celestia on Fire, using her hurricane level CRV would be epic. Especially if Luna was joining her. The lungs on both of those mares could probably simulate an Earthquake. That and we can get some Scootadopts.
6215663 Thanks for the review.
6215801
You're welcome
, honestly this story has quite a bit of potential and I'm eager to see where this fic goes ^_^. I hope Dashie is able to help out Scoots (btw. nice work in going into the preening section. Not a lot of writers talk about things that can get into the feathers of avian creatures.).
6215663 Okay, that is an awesome image and needs to happen...
RoyalBardofCanterlot where is the next chapter for this story
6546766 Working on it.
6546826 ok
6546826 why did you take the next chapter down
6547294 I'm not finished with it and decided to make it slightly longer.
6547324 okay
Is good,
Not the most grammatically fluent story. But sinple and sweet. Flows well, definitely worth a read, but I think having an editor just give this story a brush down would go a long way, there are a couple places where it reads funny.