Sororal Instincts.

by Reptilicus

The color of infinity.

Sugarcube Corner was a pretty recognizable landmark in Ponyville. Even amongst the various brightly colored cottages and businesses that already adorned the small pastel town. It looked alot like a giant Gingerbread House. Realistic enough to be edible, even. However those who attempted to taste the structure would soon fine it tasted roughly like drywall and concrete. Even the icing that coated the roof was expertly crafted bits of wood and caulk. The entire structure had been designed by a young stallion by the name of Carrot Cake as a gift to the mare he loved. This had been more than a decade ago and while the building had gone through a few redesigns and fixes over its years, as the occupants within aged gracefully, the Cake family who owned it still ran the business the same way they always had. Service with a smile. And nothing but top-quality baked goods. It was a fruitful venture even in a town with as many budding young chefs as Ponyville. Nobody could deny that BonBon's Sweet Shoppe and Carrot Top's Cafe were fancier places to dine with higher quality food. But one didn't go to Sugarcube just to eat. It was a bit of an adventure with an atmosphere like nowhere else in the town. It was more than lunch, it was an experience.

The inside of the restaurant was set up sort of like a bizarre cross between a toy store and a deli. Everything inside was hoofcrafted wood designed to look like cake, cookies, frosting. The support beams looked like cinnamon sticks with brown sugar sprinkled delicately upon them. A glass window out front showed some of the currently available desserts but special orders were always welcome and cooked fresh. A few tables inside and outside allowed ponies to sit and eat and chat with each other or the Cake family themselves. Carrot and his wife Cup were constantly trying to make sure everyone who left the establishment felt good about themselves. They went beyond the call of duty in trying to be sociable with their guests. Which is why Pinkie seemed to fit in so well. The pink talkative pony loved her life living in the attic of the bakery and helping with cooking, cleaning, or being a waitress on busy days. Nobody really knew exactly how it was that Pinkie came to live with the Cakes but from an outside observer one would think Pinkie was their daughter. The middle-aged couple certainly treated her as such. However they were not related by blood. Pinkie had come to them from a rock mine far outside of Ponyville. When asked about the subject, shushed answers were usually given. It was a sensitive topic for reasons the Cakes and Pinkie didn't enjoy talking about and kept a secret. But few asked anyway. With the arrival of Carrot and Cup's twins Pinkie had been taking on a lot more responsibilities around the shop. It took quite a bit of effort to keep such a popular eatery going but Pinkie had the energy and social skills to keep customers coming back, while still making time to babysit when she was needed. Parties, catering, even weddings had happened at the bakery over the years.

Today however the shop was closed due to the tremendously loud and violent snowstorm outside. Pinkie was in her attic bedroom listening to old swing music on her small wooden radio. She had built the radio herself out of spare parts. It seemed alot of ponies thought Pinkie wasn't too bright due to her somewhat ditzy personality and extremely short attention span. But underneath her wild neon pink curls and large blue eyes lay a very clever brain that seemed to be at constant odds with itself. As the storm raged outside, a similar storm was raging inside the mind of the pink pony. She was experiencing an emotion that she hated most of all: loneliness. Her adopted guardians had retired to their bedroom to take care of the twin infants and Pinkie was alone in her room listening to music. Her pet alligator Gummy was sitting on a pile of deflated balloons snoring quietly to himself. He was still a baby himself, with no teeth and an often vacant expression on his face. Pinkie glanced fondly at him as he slept then went back to moping.

Pinkie had invited all of her friends to come over for a sleepover on the night of the big blizzard. But every one of them had found a way to turn her down. Twilight Sparkle, who had recently moved to town, claimed she had too much studying to do. Pinkie wasn't sure what Twilight studied but trusted that the purple unicorn wouldn't lie to her. Rarity claimed she needed to take care of her little sister Sweetie Bell who was staying over for the season. Pinkie couldn't think of a reason why Rarity shouldn't bring Sweetie over as well but the white unicorn had made up her mind. Applejack wanted to keep the barns from taking damage during the blizzard. Fluttershy wanted to be sure all the animals in the forest had somewhere warm and safe to stay. Rainbow Dash was responsible for the winter that was exploding outside the Sugarcube Corner windows. So it was Pinkie by herself in her room feeling somewhat abandoned. Bitter thoughts floated to the surface of her mind wondering if her friends were trying to avoid her. Or even liked her. A small flare of childish anger reared up in her chest, but was quickly abandoned as she realized how ridiculous it was to be upset right now. She shook her head to clear her mind.

"Nope, not today." she thought. "I'm in control of my stinky emotions."

She remembered grimly what had happened last time she felt that her closest friends had purposely avoided her. A deep depression that quickly spiraled out of control into a feverish humiliating stupor where she had begun hearing voices and arguing with inanimate objects over the value of the ponies she cared about so much. Rainbow had been there to rescue Pinkie during this time and the two of them had kept it as a secret ever since. But sitting in the dark while the blizzard whooshed outside made it very difficult to not reflect on those malicious thoughts again. That part of her core that feared rejection and was paranoid of liars was still a part of her, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it.

"I need a distraction." Pinkie thought to herself as she felt her hair droop. "But what."

She sat back on her haunches and put a hoof to her forehead and stuck out her tongue. The perfect position for being in deep thought. She sure as hay wasn't going to walk out into the blizzard. Somepony could get hurt that way. She remembered the time a stray flying icicle had bopped her friend Fluttershy on the head, giving her a concussion. Pinkie winced at the memory. She didn't want to go through that. It had taken Fluttershy ages to pay for her medical bills. Luckily for the pink pony a distraction had arrived with a loud clinking sound at her window.

Pinkie turned her head abruptly to see a tortoise tapping the end of his sharp mouth on the glass of her window, large piles of snow collecting on his shell as he hovered.

"Heya Tank!" Pinkie squealed as she wrenched the window open and the tortoise came to rest on her carpet. He did a small turtley dance to get his harness off and simultaneously shake off the snow.

"Whatcha doin' here huh huh huh? Is Dashie coming too, Tank? Did she reconsider?"

Tank nodded his head up and down and looked around the room. He'd never been inside of Pinkie's room before. It was a strange place. Party decorations, posters of old musicians, instruments, toys, candy wrappers and other objects lay on the ground, tacked to the walls, and dangling from the ceiling. And most of it was pink. Had the hearths-warming eve lights taped to the ceiling been currently switched on, all the pink would probably have hurt ones eyes. In a sense the room embodied the same sort of cute and happy chaos that embodied Pinkie Pie, herself.

"YEAH!" shrieked Pinkie. "Me and Dashie gonna have a sleepover yeah. I gotta go make cookies so we have something to eat and get a scary movie so we have something to watch. And find an extra mattress so she has somewhere to sleep. Hey Tank you want to help me cook, huh huh, do ya? We can make them shaped like turtles! Or is it tortoises? Or is it turtleses? I dont know what the difference is I guess its kinda like frogs and toads where they are the same animal. Or is it like butterflies and moths? Or newts and salamanders? I should talk to Fluttershy about this stuff. Oh yeah cookies!"

Tank slowly nodded. The jabbering pink pony in front of him had not fazed his casual demeanor one bit. Before he could step forward he quickly found himself lifted into the air by Pinkie's forelegs. She stood up on her back legs and trotted down the stairs to the kitchen, carrying the complacent tortoise.

**********************************************************************

Scootaloo trudged through the snow grumbling to herself. Out of nowhere some sort of large snowstorm had suddenly hit the area and with it had destroyed the small abandoned treehouse she'd found herself sleeping in lately. It hadn't been a great spot but it seemed much more secure than hiding out in the Apple Orchard cellar. As of late Applejack and her brother Big Macintosh had been stocking kilderkins of cider into the cellar often forcing Scootaloo to have to hide herself underneath some straw to avoid suspicion. The last thing the tiny filly wanted was to have someone discover she was hiding out in someone's basement. Causing others to worry about her. She enjoyed her independence and how well she was able to take care of herself, despite being a small child. She was smart. Smarter than her friends probably thought. She'd show them! One of these days anyway. But for now she was a girl on a mission. That mission? To fix the shambled splinters of wood that were once a small shack made of planks in the lofty branches of a short fat pine tree. The tree itself wasn't doing so hot either. The winter wills that whippoored in the wind had walloped the pine and sent it bending over. When it tried to whippoor back with a nice and chubby branch the whole thing snapped sending the small plywood house that sat in its branches crashing to the ground. Along with the small orange filly inside and several boughs of the tree.

Scootaloo sighed through her teeth as she approached the scene of accident. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was hoping the house would magically fix itself while she went into town to look for some wooden planks to borrow. When she hadn't found any she went back to where she usually tended to grab building materials from: The Apple Farm. She was sneaky and had managed to take a somewhat hefty amount of the extra firewood the Apples often have stacked near the chicken coup. Scootaloo didn't enjoy the chickens much. Often being called a chicken herself for being unable to fly had given the filly a small grudge against the fluffy white birds. Occasionally when in a sour mood she'd find herself throwing rocks into their pen then smiling as the chickens scattered, clucking in alarm.

A Wonderbolts poster, a large green pillow, a small white pillow, an oil lamp, a wind-up-clock, a small tattered red cape with a blue patch, and a small somewhat dusty doll of a brownish horse that wore blue polka-dot trunks with buttons for eyes. Scootaloo's belongings now sat in the ice freezing over. The poster was something Scootaloo had received from Rainbow Dash more than a year ago. She'd casually mentioned she thought it was her birthday to her friend Sweetie Belle and before she knew it, half the town knew via gossip. Scoot didn't enjoy the sudden attention or the somewhat intrusive questions that came with it. No, she didn't want to talk about her birthday. No, she wasn't spending it with family. No, she didn't want a party. No she wasn't really sure how old she was this year. She had found herself sitting in the clubhouse near Sweet Apple Acres, frowning at Sweetie for causing such a ruckus. Her mood brightened when Rainbow Dash had flown in through the window and presented her with a Wonderbolts poster. Even though it was a cheap gift (a single bit from 1-Bit-Store down the road) Scoot had cherished the gift. Rainbow signified everything Scootaloo wanted to be. She was successful, funny, athletic, and could perform incredible feats of athleticism. The filly idolized the adult pegasus.

The large pillow had, for some time now, served as a makeshift mattress. Scoot hadn't been growing much and her tiny orange body could still sit on a pillow designed for adult ponies heads and lay quite comfortably upon it as if it were a bed. The smaller pillow had simply been that it was. A pillow for Scootaloo to put her head on, or sometimes under if the thunder outside was too loud. The red-tattered cape was the official cape of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, a small club Scootaloo had helped co-found. It had only three members. Herself, Sweetie Belle, and Applebloom who was the youngest member of the Apple family. The club was really a backdrop for the three new friends to have something to do. While they often were trying to figure out their special talents, they spent most of their time just playing as children do. Sometimes worrying if they would still be friends when one of them eventually got her "cutie-mark" which was a rite of passage into adulthood. A sort of magical seal that appeared on a pony when he or she realized what their destiny was.

The small brown doll had once belonged to Big Macintosh, eldest sibling of the Apples. Scootaloo didn't know how Mac had gotten ahold of the doll that had once been seen in the company of Twilight Sparkle, but once he grew tired of carrying it around, Scootaloo had quickly snatched it. She didn't like to steal and she hated considering herself a thief. But a few wrongdoings seemed much better than the alternative which would involve getting people worried for her well-being. She shuddered at the thought.

Another thought soon passed through the young filly's mind as she surveyed the damage in the snow. She had no idea how to build a treehouse. Not from scratch anyway. And certainly not from triangular logs of firewood. Fixing an old Treehouse was easy. In fact her friend Applebloom seemed to have a real talent for fixing things. Scoot dearly wished that Applebloom was there now. A feeling of hopelessness started filling the air as Scootaloo realized she had no hammer, no nails, and certainly no knowledge of construction to try and fix this terrible mess. She might have to try sneaking into the Apple Farm cellars again. Not a pleasant thought. That place was creepy! And it was cold in there too! Scootaloo sighed sadly and sat on her haunches. She was so small the level of snow rose up to her chest. She was freezing but there were more important things to worry about right now than her temperature. She shoved the pile of wood she had dragged along and watched it topple over into the snow, quickly becoming covered by the falling flakes of white ice that were billowing down through the pine trees.

"Now what?" she whispered to herself. Soon so lost in thought she didn't hear the quiet flapping of wings as someone she knew landed behind her.

"Hey squirt! What the heck are you doing here sitting in the freezing snow in this kinda weather?" Rainbow shouted so she could be heard over the wind.

Scootaloo pricked her ears up and turned around. "Oh wow! Hey Rainbow Dash! What are you doing here?"
Scootaloo turned around to face the cyan mare who was more than twice her size. Scootaloo beamed up at her hero, her small messy purple tail wagging in the snow like an excited puppy.

"Kid you need to get inside! It's not safe for you to be in a forest with the wind like this. What if like a branch falls off a tree and hits you and you get hurt? What are you up to?"
Rainbow tilted her head a bit to see past the tiny orange pony sitting in the snow staring at her with a look of adoration. A toppled tree and what looked to be a smashed treehouse sat in the snowdrift.

"Scootaloo you can't be thinking about sitting in a treehouse during a snowstorm right? That's so unsafe I can't even like.....there's no good analogy for how unsafe that is! You should be at home where its safe!"

Scoot glanced behind herself at the mess. "I can't go home yet." she said in a quiet voice. She turned back towards Rainbow smiling gleefully. What an honor! THE Rainbow Dash, the only pony who had done a Sonic Rainboom in almost a century, the most talented flier in Equestria, whom along with her friends had defeated not one but TWO evil Gods and a weird race of bug creatures. And this pony, this hero to so many, was for the first time in a long time sitting here in the snow worried about Scootaloo. This was the first real attention Rainbow had given Scootaloo since the long-gone days of the Rainbow Dash FanClub that Scootaloo had organized amongst the other children of Ponyville. She'd always hoped Rainbow would attend but it never happened. But instead here she was, covered in snow and looking down at Scootaloo with a stern and confused expression on her face, looking as brave and heroic as ever.

"Scootaloo you need to go home. RIGHT NOW." Rainbow crowed in what she hoped was a very commanding voice.

"Sorry, can't! I have to fix this!" replied the small orange pegasus fluttering her tiny wings slightly.

"Ugh." Rainbow put a hoof to her temple. "Here, Scoot let's make a deal. You come with me to Sugarcube Corner and we can hang out for a while and once the initial blizzard is over I'll help you fix this uh..... ugly thing. This treehouse thing. How does that sound?"

The small layer of snow that had nearly covered the tiny orange filly over the course of the last minute flew off in a spectacular cloud of white as she energetically leaped gleefully around.
"Yes! Yes! Yes! Let's hang out Rainbow Dash! I've always wanted to do that! This is gonna be so coooooool!"

Rainbow grimaced slightly trying to feign enthusiasm. She knew this small orange pegasus thought she was some sort of superhero, but Rainbow had never been fond of kids. They were hyper and messy and seemed to have all the negative traits of Pinkie Pie with none of the positives. During the occasional times Rarity or Applejack had asked if she wanted to babysit the Cutie Mark Crusaders she had managed to come up with somewhat believable excuses and since then, tended to dump the three kids on Fluttershy so they could have a night of peace. Fluttershy had managed to take care of them a few times and the three fillies adored her. She'll probably make a great mom one day was something Rainbow often thought to herself about her quiet friend. But never herself. It weirded her out how this small orange filly followed her around, watching her practice, and acting as if the pegasus was some sort of superhero.

With a small leap Rainbow took to the air unsteadily as the wind and snow buffeted her lithe body. With a tilt of her head she beckoned to Scootaloo to follow. Scootaloo's eyes glassed over a bit then her expression warped to something like fear and then confusion.

"Could we walk to Sugarcube Corner?" she asked innocently unable to look at Rainbow's face.

"Scoot why in Equestria would you want to WALK to Sugarcube Corner in THIS?" Rainbow shouted waving her forelegs around gesturing at all the snow and ice that was cascading around them.

"Uh....cause its really pretty and I want to see what the town looks like!" Scootaloo replied. It wasn't the whole truth of why she wouldn't fly but it was good enough.

"Oh for pete's sake. Fine fine. We'll walk. But if I catch a cold from walking through all this boring snow it's going to be YOUR fault, kiddo. I don't want to spend my vacation with the flu. I hate the flu!" Rainbow landed grumpily and began to trudge through the snow.

Rainbow was large enough that her legs could walk through the snow leaving deep holes and furrows as she went through the town. Scootaloo didn't have that luxury. After a few minutes of leaping to and fro between the hoofprints her large friend was trailing, Scoot quickly found herself exhausted and pushing her way through the ice. Her snout and eyes barely above the snow as she struggled to push it aside to keep up. Yet despite all this she was happy. Her idol was taking her to the best bakery in town and the two of them were going to hang out. This thought gave Scoot so much glee she didn't even notice just how cold she was and how the snow continued to pile around her.

"You alright back there, Scoots?" Rainbow asked. She hadn't been keeping too close of an eye on the filly over the last twenty minutes or so. She could hear the scrunching of snow and quiet giggling that let her know that Scootaloo wasn't too far behind. She turned to look behind her.

"Yeah I'm fine." Scoot mumbled. The cold was finally numbing her senses a bit and she felt a strange warmth coming up from her fetlocks. She stumbled slightly as a cold shiver ran up her spine. A strange tremor ran through her muscles. She looked up at Rainbow dash, the muscles in her neck aching and smiled as hard as she could at the rainbow-maned Pegasus. She wasn't going to look weak. Not today. And not in front of Rainbow Dash. She would be brave and weather this storm like a champion. Just like Dash was.

"Alrighty!" Rainbow grinned and turned back around. Trotting forward towards the buried streetcorner that would lead them onto the bakery. As she walked, a feeling of dread and relief began to come over Rainbow Dash. Scootaloo had been pretty quiet for the last few minutes. Maybe she'll be quiet at the bakery as well. That way Pinkie and Rainbow could engage in conversations and not need to look after a noisy kid too hard. That would be nice.

Thinking about things she hoped Scootaloo wouldn't say occupied Rainbow's thoughts to the point that she failed to notice the lack of noise coming from the filly behind her. Rainbow trotted forward for another minute before realizing something seemed off. The scrunch noises of her small companion had ceased. Perhaps even some time ago.

Rainbow stopped and stiffened. Something wasn't right. Why wasn't Scootaloo making any sound? Rainbow whipped her head around backwards. She couldn't see the orange filly through the flakes of falling snow. Rainbow turned around entirely and followed her tracks. A good fifty meters from where she'd been previously was a large indent in the snow. A messy hole amongst Rainbow's large hoofprints. Panic started to creep into Rainbow as she dreaded what had made it.

"Scoot? Scootaloo?" she shouted. There was no answer just the whispers of the wind as it flowed through the town. Rainbow sped up. From a trot to a gallop and soon to a full run, using her large cyan wings to push herself faster and faster until she reached the hole.

"Scoo - " Rainbow began to shout but her voice caught in her throat. Inhaling deeply she peered into the hole in the snow and saw the most terrifying thing she'd seen in a long time.

Roughly two feel deep into the hole was the soaked body of Scootaloo. Her breathing was short and ragged. A sickly wheeze as her nostrils dilated. Her lips were blue and she was motionless. One eye shut and the other half open with a faraway lifeless look in it. Her tail and mane were covered in white as the snow had quickly sought to cover the small horse when her body had given up on her. Rainbow stared down in horror at the scene. This was her fault. Her mind raced with unpleasant thoughts. She should have paid more attention. She should have tried carrying the child on her back. Or taken her to Fluttershy's cottage. Stopped walking so fast. Anything. Anything that could have prevented this. Taken responsibility for someone who needed her.

With a hawklike shriek of terror, Dash grabbed the filly's small frozen form in her forelegs and took off at an unimaginable speed towards the nearest warm building leaving a small colorful scarf in her wake that fluttered delicately to the ground and within moments was covered in the beautiful white flakes that continued to drift, unabated, from the sky.

Comments

[Dwarven_Pony]

Nice story s?o far keep it up.

[ShadowThePony]

When I read the title:
"Green?"

[King of Kings]

When I read the title:
25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkc321c2tq1qad7xto1_500.png

[josue]

misspell feet not feel sorry i loved your story this is just nitpicking love this

[Dragon of Shadows]

smooth weather team very smooth you nearly killed scoots

[Draco Dei]

Pinkie turned her head abruptly to see a tortoise tapping the end of his sharp mouth on the glass of her window
- So maybe in the last chapter you should have said Pinkie leaves a window unlocked for Dash rather than open? Also I think all your image links are broken.

The red-tattered cape was the official cape of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, a small club Scootaloo had helped co-found. It had only three members. Herself, Sweetie Belle, and Applebloom who was the youngest member of the Apple family.
-This and a lot of other information in this paragraph are things that most people who watch the show would know. Personally, I'd just leave it out, but a lot of people do this sort of thing so I wonder if there might be some point to the practice that I'm missing.

[King of Kings]

None of the picture links are working so far...

[King of Kings]

7053059

The way to get those images to work is to paste the story into a Word Document.

[Fluttershyisacutegal]

Scoots!