Chapter Nine: A Desperate Move
“But where is she?” Scootaloo said to herself. She had been traveling Cloudsdale for nearly two straight hours, but she had yet to even see a hint of the mare she so desperately sought. She had figured that Cloudsdale was going to be like Ponyville, just a town in the clouds that was a relatively decent size; but this place was huge. “It’s no wonder everypony flies around here,” she muttered. “This is gonna take forever on hoof.”
She had been following signs which pointed her in the right direction for what felt like ages. There were so many things that Scootaloo wanted to stop and examine up closer, like shops, houses, playgrounds, all themed for pegasus ponies. But she had to keep moving.
One thing nopony seemed to talk about much was how Cloudsdale grew darker much quicker than other towns and cities. Being so high up in the air meant when the sun was just past midday the place seemed like it was nearly night time. She didn’t know if ponies here were so used to it that they still slept at a normal time, but either way, she was panicking inside.
“Get it together, Scoots. I can always look tomorrow; not like I, uh, haven’t spent the night on my own before…” Her voice trailed off as the place grew quieter and her nerves felt on edge. “It’s just dark out. Nothing there that isn’t there in the light…” But her words failed to reassure her.
She slowed down when she neared what appeared to be a courthouse constructed of clouds and sighed. I could be cantering around all night and probably not even see half of this place, she thought, sighing again. Scootaloo took a seat on the cloud surface of the court’s staircase and relaxed some.
Had she gone too far? A big part of her was now starting to question her rash actions. She used to wonder just why she always took safety for granted by charging head onto all of her problems. But looking back at her previous life—the life she had left behind for good—it didn’t take a magic scientist to figure out why. She had gone from a life of essentially a collective dictatorship to full-blown freedom, and she was going to savor every second of it. But too often she would find herself in a situation she could have easily avoided by simply thinking things through beforehand. But what else was she supposed to do?! She had to fly! It was driving her nuts!
She slammed her hoof down angrily onto the cloud surface, causing a burst of it to hit her face. Scootaloo grumbled and quickly wiped it off her fur. “Now what?”
“Hey, just shut up, will ya? I gotta get this load over to the Wonderbolts’ stadium, pronto!”
It was as if Luna and Celestia came from the heavens and bestowed onto Scootaloo the answer she sought. She looked over and saw a stockily-built stallion, floating above the steps. Attached to his side was a large saddle bag that looked filled to the brim with stuff. He hastily slammed the cloud door shut and began to take off without warning.
Scootaloo panicked, and before she even knew what she was doing, she called out to him. “Wait!”
The stallion ceased his flying and turned, on the spot, to face Scootaloo. “What?” he demanded impatiently.
“Could you take me with you, please?” she said in the sweetest voice she could muster. “I’ve been trying to find the place all day, but I, uh, don’t fly well. Heh.”
The stallion could have easily said no and have been on his way, but he caved under her giant, adorable eyes and sighed. “Fine, whatever. Get on, kid. Hurry,” he said impatiently.
She beamed and wasted no time in obeying. Awkwardly she clutched his neck for support. She felt giddy and, without warning herself, screamed out, “Hi-yo Silver! Away!!”
The stallion turned to her and snorted. “The name’s Lucky.” Then he soared into the air and flew away from the court, and onto the stadium.
“Scootaloo!” she called out, trying not to be rude.
“Nice to meet ya, I guess. What you need there, anyway? Last I heard, they only want recruits for their team and more supplies.”
They soared at a steady pace, passing by a multitude of buildings that would have taken her ages to get by on hoof. “I just need to talk to them,” Scootaloo called back.
“What? You want an autograph or something?” he said, chuckling a bit. “You better have the quill ready, ‘cause Spitfire has been in one heap of a bad mood.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “She always gets this way during training sessions. Just how she is, so watch it.”
“Uh, okay. Oh, wow!” Scootaloo exclaimed, watching the scenery change from the dimly-lit cloud houses to the amazing sight that was the Wonderdrome, home of the Wonderbolts. This place looks huge! You could house half of Ponyville in here! Wonderful-looking rainbow fountains were scattered all along the sides of the pristine, compressed-cloud walkways crisscrossed the open grounds, and golden shining statues of famous fliers dotted the campus. Surrounding it were recruits, all flying about, attempting to impress the judges that were, no doubt, some of the Wonderbolts themselves. “Awesome!” Scootaloo screamed, forgetting that her voice would fly right into Lucky’s ears.
“Ow!”
“Oops. Sorry, dude.”
“Mm-hm. Sure, you are,” he said distastefully. “Alright, now hang on,” he suddenly announced, and the next thing Scootaloo knew, they were soaring high above the stadium.
Having a rehearsed path, Lucky dived through the other training ponies and swiftly landed elegantly directly in front of the Wonderbolts. He had done this so routinely that Scootaloo got the suspicion that the stallion did this on a daily basis, perhaps even hourly. Scootaloo, however, now faced a new challenge: working up enough courage to speak to ponies that her idol idolized. She gulped and nervously hopped off of Lucky’s back.
“Alright, I got more supplies, Miss Spitfire. Oh, and you got a fan that wants to speak with ya,” he said in a casual tone.
Spitfire ignored him and marched toward Scootaloo with an air of purpose. Her lavishly decorated outfit, burning yellow color scheme of her fur and feathers, and her dark coated sunglasses made her seem intimidating on the surface. However, she cracked a grin when she noticed the size and age of her new fan. “Right, do you want an autograph or something?” she asked in a level tone.
Scootaloo quickly shook her head, causing Spitfire’s eyes to widen in surprise. She corrected herself and eyed the new filly with new curiosity.
Crud, did I tick her off? She’s gonna kick me out! Scootaloo thought.
“Oh, yeah? Then, what did you need, kid?”
Shaking a bit, Scootaloo dropped her saddlebag in front of her. She reached in, nervously, and took out the outfit that Bubbles had got her. “Uh, I was wondering if you could teach me how to fly… some?” she said while doing her level best to keep her voice steady. “Please?”
It took Spitfire, the leader of the great fliers of Equestria, the Wonderbolts, a few moments to respond. Her brain simply hadn’t fully registered what had been requested of her. She had been asked many things since reaching full fame. Autographs, pictures, interviews galore and, once or twice, been asked upon to teach somepony a trick or two. But never before had any of her fellow Wonderbolts, herself included, have been asked to actually teach somepony how to fly. Very few fillies and colts had issues obtaining flight and the ones that did usually had the good sense not to go parading that fact around. How desperate was this filly that she would not only flat out ask for flight lessons but from the practical queen of flight herself?
Who just does that? Spitfire thought in a near panic. What do I even say to that?!
She crossed the filly’s eyes and took a deep breath to calm her nerves, before speaking, “Kid, where… where did you even get that outfit?”
Considering she had already spoken out loud, there was going to be no denying what age Scootaloo was. She had half considered somehow lying and claiming she was a mute adult who was simply smaller than others but thought better of it. “My mom got it for me,” she said in a half-truth. “It’s supposed to help me strengthen my wings because they keep buzzing when I try to fly. I guess I just flap too fast.”
“Too fast…?” Spitfire uttered in a daze. “I kind of doubt that… you…” Spitfire trailed off, however; upon seeing something peculiar, she couldn’t even work up the courage to respond. Most ponies would never notice what she had, not in a million years. When you trained as rigorously as she did and when your special talent involved flight, you tend not to miss a beat when it came to other pegasus ponies. However, the clue was so subtle that she very much doubted that this little filly knew anything at all.
Thinking she was waiting for her, Scootaloo answered. “Oh, I’m, uh, Scootaloo, Miss Spitfire,” she offered with a blush.
“Scootaloo…” Spitfire uttered, again hopeless to come up with anything else to contribute. Her eyes were simply glued to the filly’s wings. She snapped out of it once Scootaloo flickered them nervously. “Uh, Scootaloo, have you ever seen a doctor about your wi- about your inability to fly?”
“Why would-?” She shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“Your wings, kid. Haven’t you ever noticed that the color of your wings is slightly darker than the rest of your coat?” she said in a very business-like manner. “I don’t believe your wings are receiving enough magic, or perhaps any at all.”
Scootaloo’s mind did a backflip on this. She did not expect to hear this. She didn’t have enough magic? No. Her wings didn’t have enough. It was simply unthinkable, but when she actually thought about it… some things did make more sense. Wait…
“You will not get what you wish, young one. You think you will just live with the ponies and soar to your heart’s content?”
Scootaloo felt more frightened than she ever had in her entire life. Why was the Elder acting this way? What upset her so much? Surely she saw the logic in wanting to be like other ponies? They were amazing creatures! Hesitantly, she stepped forward to speak her argument. “Um, yes?”
The Elder snorted at her. “You will march back in line and work for the greater good of our colony! If even one of us is absent from our toil and work, then it all will fall apart! Everything we’ve worked for, young one!” With every word, she punctuated with a fierce voice, all attempting to come crashing down on Scootaloo.
“So what if I’m not here to work? There’s a million of us! Just let me go!” she roared, snarling at her. “Every one of us should- should be free! Free to do what we want!”
The Elder snarled back. “You want to throw your lot in with them? You want to be one of them? Fine!” The Elder dropped everything that she was doing and began to grab random ingredients for other potions off a nearby shelf. She wasn’t even paying much attention to how reckless she was being, as some of the vials dropped and shattered to pieces against the ground. “You will be a pony,” the Elder stated, much to Scootaloo’s delight, “but you will not find your way. You will not be happy, you will not find your place in this world. You will never find your purpose; the one you seek so desperately. Never!”
Before Scootaloo even knew what she was doing, she had begun to breathe at an incredibly fast pace. It was something she had avoided for so long, but she couldn't help but feel that the Elder had been correct. She knew that by going down this path was doomed to fail. She was warning me… Scootaloo thought with dread.
Spitfire continued. “Of course, it’s probably a s- oomph!”
Scootaloo wasn’t listening, however, and had charged forward, nearly knocking Spitfire off her hooves. She didn’t bother to look back, or even where she was going. The tears that now pooled in her eyes were blinding, but she didn’t care. She had to get out of there; to not be seen by anypony. The sheer embarrassment of openly crying in public, in front of Spitfire no less, felt so great that she started to sniffle, even when she was panting for more breath. She ran and ran for what felt like hours, but what closer to twenty minutes later, she collapsed onto a cloud bench and sighed.
There were no more tears left, only shame and a sore neck from all the running. She felt dizzy and dehydrated. To her astonishment, she had appeared to have lost her bag somewhere. Did I take it off back… there? She shook her head at the thought, not remembering at all. She felt that it didn’t matter, anyway. There was no point in going back for the suit. What help could it bring now? And the doll that she had packed away, along with her worldly possessions, no longer brought her comfort. The thought of them simply disgusted her. She had been so stupid and so reckless to even think she could be a pony or even a pegasus. The Elder had been right.
There was nothing she could do. There was no returning to life as Breezie; she’d rather live her entire life as Diamond Tiara’s servant than, ironically, serve her life to the Breezies. “I’ll have to live my life as just a regular pony… nothing special,” she whispered to herself. Except now, as a pegasus pony who couldn’t ever fly.
If she was lucky, some guard would pick her up and take her back to Ponyville; that was if Bubbles was out looking for her. She didn’t want to think of what could happen if her luck turned even more rotten, but neither result really mattered to her much. She felt completely and totally numb.
It was an odd feeling to not feel anything, but she welcomed it with open hooves. ‘Disappointed’ didn’t even begin to describe how she actually felt; but by ignoring her emotions and feelings, she was able to feel nothing. Giving up on her hopes and dreams felt so liberating that it was like a switch had turned on in her, one that siphoned all of her stress and worries away. For a while she considered simply resting, maybe going to sleep; but her body refused to cooperate.
When it became apparent that she was not going to be doing any sleeping, she sighed and walked away from the bench. “Maybe I can find a nice pegasus to give me a ride down. If I’m lucky,” she said to the cloud floor. Scootaloo walked off in a random direction, not caring where she was going.
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Poor Scootaloo, I half expected Discord to causally pop up and give her flight in exchange for a dark request, you can just kind of see the god of chaos doing such, damn this story is getting crazy, can't wait for more.
7048612 Who says he won't?!
7048636 This is going to be good, and knowing Discord, who may just be one of the oldest creatures in the world he can no doubt see who Scoots really is.
7048941 Was a jokey, sorry.
7049160 You're fine bro.
7065497 I am very proud of the name me and my friends made up: Firehen.
7065602 I now no longer understand your comments, strange sir. Are you saying my Sweetie Belle in this story is stupid?
7065781 You know I'd agree with you and I've often wondered if putting that in the story is bad or not, but I do promise that, if you keep reading, it plays a small role in her story and doesn't get in the way. At least, I hope it doesn't to you.
7065845 Sounds like a very mean meme. Damn you internet!
Anyway, other than the criticism you had about Scootaloo's subplot being a bother, got anymore? I'm often starved for constructive criticism on my stories.
7066015 and that it be important again in the future
This Planetary Ebb concept comes right out of nowhere, and at least from my bias, it feels like it'll basically be abandoned after a couple of chapters and either never talked about again or an occasional aside or two made about it.
First off, are you suggesting that people can no longer create their own ideas and concepts relating to Equestria?
That we should all just use established fannon ideas and never try and be creative again? The Ebb was my way of explaining magic in depth in my own way; doesn't mean it came out of nowhere. And, again, the story isn't finished. We still have Scootaloo's sections and training to go through; but your suggestion is a good idea (even if I was probably gonna do that anyway; I didn't just establish The Ebb for the sake of nothing 
)
7067792 Heh, I take it you have heavy criticism of the Harry Potter books too?
7067792 Also, you may be correct on trying to make a concept feel more organic, but remember, Sweetie's mentioned before that Twilight doesn't like to teach her things unless she fully understands it first. It would make sense that Twilight wouldn't even mention it yet.
And done. Poor Scoots, filly's going to have to lay a Scootasmackdown on somepony or Somebreezie. Or go live with Fluttershy. She was willing to spoil dozens of Breezies, now she could spoil a big one.
In general, unless you had this story planned out in-depth ahead of time, I think you're going to find yourself going where you didn't expect. Scootaloo is the problem here as I mentioned before; her storyline simply overwhelms Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle's as it turns into a story of self-discovery, angst and either learning to make do with what she's got or refusing to accept that and always reaching for the next thing, a parallel to her time with the Breezies: it is in fact her burning desire for independence, fitting in with pony culture and always reaching higher (both figuratively and literally) that is her story arc. Given the size of Breezies and how in real life smaller species have shorter life spans, I wonder if Scootaloo hasn't already lived the average life span of a Breezie several times over by now, which could also be screwing with her psyche.
But in any case, given that, either you're going to have to end up either writing similar drama for Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle so they can have similar internal struggles like Scootaloo suffers, or Scootaloo is simply going to have to take the lead role of this story instead of one of three mostly equal characters.
On a similar note, I think you may want to establish your interpretation of the rough human mental and emotional developments of the Cutie Mark Crusaders in this fic. Bubbles does something fairly profound a few chapters back when she reminds herself that Scootaloo is still young and literally doesn't understand what's wrong with what she's done. From an audience perspective, it's useful for us to know if the actions the Cutie Mark Crusaders are committing are akin to the actions of preteen females just about to enter their teenage years, or young girls still only in single digits age. The show obviously hems and haws around that but it's something useful to have here.
7068216 But in any case, given that, either you're going to have to end up either writing similar drama for Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle so they can have similar internal struggles like Scootaloo suffers, or Scootaloo is simply going to have to take the lead role of this story instead of one of three mostly equal characters.
Nope! Just because I split up the story into three different parts, doesn't mean one character needs to be evenly matched in terms of depth. But, at the same time, Scootaloo's isn't going to be the dominant one either
On a similar note, I think you may want to establish your interpretation of the rough human mental and emotional developments of the Cutie Mark Crusaders in this fic. Bubbles does something fairly profound a few chapters back when she reminds herself that Scootaloo is still young and literally doesn't understand what's wrong with what she's done. From an audience perspective, it's useful for us to know if the actions the Cutie Mark Crusaders are committing are akin to the actions of preteen females just about to enter their teenage years, or young girls still only in single digits age. The show obviously hems and haws around that but it's something useful to have here.
I was trying to show you their age, and not tell you so much. If it helps you, they're still school aged kids trying to grow up in a strange, magical world.