Trust the Sun for Warming
Spike paused at the entrance to the guest room, feeling the gentle hum of Twilight’s forcefield. He reached out with a claw and the amulet around his neck began to glow. The purple field receded, just enough to let him pass. He knocked, but hearing no answer, withdrew and turned around. If he was honest with himself, he had no clue what he would say to Scootaloo. He didn’t know what she was going through and as much as he hated to admit it he had never been very good at solving problems. Most of the time I just make things worse. But Scootaloo was his friend, and while wasn’t a certified friendship expert like Twilight, a lot of her knowledge had rubbed off on him. After all, he had helped Twilight and her friends a bunch of times. There was that time he saved Rarity from that evil spell book, not to mention the time he saved the Crystal Heart. If I can do all that, maybe I can help Scootaloo. He steeled himself and pushed the door open.
Scootaloo was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall. She turned to look at him and immediately slumped her shoulders. “I guess this is it,” she said.
“What are you talking about, Scootaloo?”
Scootaloo squinted and Spike felt her studying him. It was unnerving. “You’re here, which means Twilight told you everything. So what’s the deal? Did you come to say goodbye? Or you just want to find out why I’ve been lying to you?”
“Twilight didn’t tell me anything. She just told me my friend was in trouble and that she apparently didn’t want any help.”
Scootaloo’s eyes widened slightly and her voice grew a shade more hopeful. “She really didn’t tell you?”
“No. She said she promised you she wouldn’t.”
For a moment, Spike could see relief wash over his friend, but it swiftly gave way to melancholy again. “I’m an orphan. There’s no helping that,” Scootaloo said softly.
All of the sudden the events of the last few days made sense, and past curiosities that Spike had written off as “Scootaloo just being Scootaloo” became clear: why Scootaloo never invited people to her house, why he had never met her parents, why she scarfed her food down and sometimes took other ponies’ leftovers home. “Scootaloo—”
“You can’t help me Spike.” The interruption was as quick as it was brutal
The response came as a surprise but not because he disagreed with the sentiment. “Well yeah, but Twilight can. She’s a princess,” Spike said. “There has to be something she can do.”
“There isn’t.”
Spike opened his mouth but no words came out. Maybe Scootaloo was right. It wasn’t like Twilight could magically conjure up a set of parents. He looked at his friend sitting on the edge of the bed and noticed an ugly red mark on her hoof. He may not have had any way to soothe Scootaloo’s psychic anguish, but he did have years of experience patching Twilight up after her experiments backfired. “That looks pretty bad,” he said pointing to the burn.
“It’s no big deal.”
“I could look at it if you want. I’m pretty handy with a first aid kit.” Scootaloo shrugged, and Spike hustled into the bathroom. He returned with a red box marked with a white cross.
“There’s a first aid kit in there?” Scootaloo asked, momentarily distracted.
“Yep, there’s one under every sink, checked monthly as part of our safety inspection,” Spike said cheerfully. Spike sat down on the bed and gingerly took Scootaloo’s hoof. She recoiled slightly but not enough to slip free. Spike caught her eye and saw trepidation—an expression he’d never expected from his friend. But then, she’d never trusted him with something this big before. He worked quickly, washing the burn with powder soap and bottled saline first, being careful not to break the skin. It was ugly and infected, but not too badly just yet. Some antibiotic cream and a fresh bandage later and Spike pronounced the hoof as “good as new.”
Scootaloo flexed a few times. “Thank you Spike.” She looked him in the face again. “Tell her to let me go. Maybe she’ll listen to you,” she pleaded.
Despite her eyes begging him to just say yes, Spike considered her request before answering. He didn’t really know what Scootaloo was running from and the idea of letting her go so that she could be alone in the world again was not appealing. “I could ask, but I think you should give her a chance, Scootaloo. You may not realize it but she’s trying really hard.”
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Yeah I’m sure it takes a lot for her to give me a cupcake and then cast a couple spells preventing me from leaving this stupid room.”
Spike shook his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. She was up all night reading stuff.”
“She does that anyway,” Scootaloo shot back.
Spike shook his head again. “Not like this she doesn’t.”
“What are you talking about, Spike?”
“When Twilight was studying sleep spells, she also discovered a few spells that help ponies stay awake.”
“If she was studying sleep spells why was she reading about wake-up ones?”
Spike shrugged. “I dunno, that’s just how her mind works. She studied fire and ice magic at the same time too.”
“OK, fine, so she cast some spell to help her stay up. I still don’t see what the big deal is.”
Spike sighed, and let his worry show on his face. “It’s dangerous, more than you think it is.” It was as close as Spike was willing to come to openly berating his troubled friend. “Twilight knows that, and she did it anyway because she’s trying to help you.”
Finally, Spike sensed Scootaloo’s stubbornness soften. “How is it dangerous?”
Spike paused again to make sure he got his explanation right. He snapped his claws as he hit upon an appropriate metaphor. “You ever run around so much that you’re sore the next day?”
Scootaloo flashed back to a few weeks ago. On a rare day off she had spent hours scootering around the park with Rainbow Dash; the next day she could barely flutter her wings. “Yeah.”
“Well imagine there was a spell that could make you feel better, except you wouldn’t actually be better, you just wouldn’t feel sore.”
“That sounds great.”
“Sure it sounds great, but it’s not. If you felt fine you might go run around all day again, and if you did that while you were still sore you might seriously hurt something. We get tired for a reason. Do you understand what I’m saying?
“I think so.”
“Well that’s kinda like what Twilight did. She’ll probably be OK, but she still risked hurting herself to help you.”
For a moment Scootaloo looked angry. Spike worried that he had stumbled across some sort of emotional tripwire. “I didn’t ask her to do that Spike,” she said, with an edge to her voice that Spike wished wasn’t there.
“I know, but maybe you could give her a chance anyway?” Spike thought about all the times he had accompanied the Crusaders on his adventures. “For me,” he added.
There was a long uncomfortable silence as Spike held his breath waiting for the answer. “I’ll talk to her Spike, because you asked me to. But I’m not promising anything.”
“Can I tell her you’re going to talk to her now, or do you want to wait?”
“You can send her in now, I guess.”
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Glad to see Spike got Scootaloo to listen. Now hopefully Twilight will some good answers for Scootaloo about how she can be helped.
interesting story only think I ponder is why it wasn't caught sooner.
I'm fine with the pacing, but something about the dialogue between Scootaloo and Spike this chapter felt a little wooden. Like you chose your talking points and then filled in the dialogue between. Things like Scootaloo announcing that she's an orphan with no prompting and Spike getting over it in a few seconds. Also, the whole "she stayed up reading" section seemed really forced but I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly why.
Sorry to be a downer and I enjoyed the story, but this chapter in particular felt a bit lacking.
8137688 hm, i kinda liked my dialouge here. I'm trying to avoid overwrought emotion here and I thought I managed to get nuance in. Maybe I didn't.
that moment when your reading and you dont realize that you are on the latest chapter XD
8137883
I got the feeling that she was a bit bitter, jaded and feeling a bit hopeless. If that was what you were going for you nailed it for me at least.
8138056 well that kinda was what i was going for....
Slow and steady does it. Good to see Scoots' hoof is getting attended to, too!
Spike is a good boy.
Yay! Spike helps!
well i appreciate spikes getting scootaloo to trust twilight, i feel somewhat disappointed at his dodging of the fact that twilight locked scootaloo in the room, flight risk or not that was wrong.
Well, Spike did his part. Now, let's see if Twilight can do hers?
8137883
The dialogue didn't feel stilted to me. It made sense, given the situation, that the two would get to the point rather than exchange pleasantries and such.
Good work!
Never would've thought Spike pulling out a charm toward Scootaloo.
I'm interested to see how things go! Your logic for the shorter posts makes sense, although I do hope we get to see some forward progress in the next few chapters towards the solution of Scootaloo's problem. TOO much slow burn can make it hard to stay interested, but I think you're doing good so far. :)
I'm happy to see Spike helping Scoot. As for the slow burn, I didn't really like it at first but it grew on me. I really hope Scoot accepts the help she so desperately needs.