Perseverance

by Star Grazer

The Attempt

Scootaloo turned the corner with only slight hesitation, paying hardly any heed to the cargo she was carrying along with her. Behind her, attached to her scooter as always, was the wagon, not filled with her friends as it normally was, but instead with planks of wood and nails, along with other supplies. Most of it was obtained by pleading with her parents, but the rest was gotten on her own accord, the filly digging through the supplies of her home for some of the nails. She had followed her crude diagrams well, and had found pretty much all of what she thought she would need.

None of that was on her mind, however, as she sped towards the Carousel Boutique in order to pick up Sweetie Belle. Hopefully the unicorn's excuse would work this time around, otherwise she wouldn't be able to come and the plan would be ruined. Fortunately, the filly Scootaloo was looking for was just leaving the Boutique, turning and catching sight of her friend. With that, Sweetie waved, beginning to trot towards the scooter, a slightly worried smile plastered on her face.

Scootaloo slid to stop near the filly, grinning over at her. "You ready for this? This'll be the one where we get our cutie marks, I can feel it!" Sweetie gave a weak chuckle with that, nodding.

"Yeah... I guess. Do we really have to go through with this?" Her smile fell, the unicorn scraping a hoof against the ground, emphasizing her lack of enthusiasm.

Scootaloo put a hoof to her face, groaning. She sighed, and looked back to Sweetie Belle. "We've been over this already, Sweetie! Just come on. Everything'll be fine, I promise." The other filly stared at her for a moment before gulping and nodding, moving to the wagon and worming her way into it among the materials.

"Let's go then..." At Sweetie's statement, the pegasus nodded, kicking off and making her way to Sweet Apple Acres for their next pick-up, Applebloom. The ride was a short one, nothing stopping them or slowing them down aside from the turns, with Sweetie grimacing at each one due to the amount of wood that pressed into her side every time. Soon enough, they were past the gate to the farm, zooming past row after row of apple trees, before Scootaloo finally came to a halt at the farmhouse.

After a moment of waiting, Scootaloo sighed, moving off of her scooter and trotting up to the door. The filly rapped on it a few times, waiting rather impatiently for somepony to answer. Finally, Applebloom opened the door, shutting it behind her, an apologetic grin on her face. "Sorry. Applejack wasn't the easiest to get away from."

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. "You can say that again. Come on, we should hurry. I wanted to start quite a bit earlier than now." Applebloom nodded, her grin going from apologetic to enthusiastic as she watched the pegasus move back to the scooter, soon following and hopping into the wagon with Sweetie Belle, taking some time to find the room to get in.

"We're ready, Scoots!" Applebloom was grinning quite eagerly, Scootaloo nodding in response as she went over the route to the house they would be fixing. Soon, she had started the scooter's movement once more, and the three were on their way towards their destination and- in their minds, at least- their cutie marks. It took them only a few minutes of travel time to get to the house, Scootaloo stopping and jumping to the side with a flutter of her wings, soon turning around and trotting over to the wagon where the other two fillies were getting out.

Scootaloo began rooting through the wagon, shoving various supplies out of the way until she found what she wanted. She grabbed it in her mouth, and pulled it out to reveal a few sheets of paper, and she plopped them down on the ground, beckoning to her friends to get them sit down with her around it. "All right, here's what I've got. I did some looking at the roof, and I'm pretty sure we can tear out this bit here-" She poked her hoof at one a part of one of the sheets, which showed a small portion of the roof, part of which was circled in red. "- and we should be able to move the other parts of the roof around. Sweetie, you'll be stacking some stuff together against those walls you found so we can get up. Applebloom, I need you to ferry the wood and stuff while I put them where they need to go."

Sweetie gave a sigh of relief, and nodded as she got up. She wouldn't have to climb up there, at least. After shooting the building a worried glance, she turned away to search for what she needed as Scootaloo outlined the reconstruction plans to Applebloom. The unicorn soon passed out of earshot, leaving her with the sound of her own hooves to accompany her. They were lucky, she would notice, as there were no adults in this area of town at the moment. Sweetie gave it a moment's thought before shrugging it off as she found a cardboard box in a nearby alley. She grabbed the object with her hooves and dragged it back to the closest wall, resting it as best she could against it before hopping on top of it, testing to be sure it held her weight. Once she had determined it was safe enough for the others, she got off in search of more items to make steps with.

It took her nearly an hour to get everything where it needed to be, but she had done it. Sweetie sat down, looking with a proud grin at the make-shift staircase she had made for the other two to use to reach the roof. She had even been able to find enough for the other wall, in case something happened and they couldn't reach one of the pathways down. She shoved her worry down, turning away from her achievement to report to Scootaloo that she was done.

"Hey Scootaloo!" Sweetie Belle was still grinning as she rushed to her friends, the pegasus she had called perking her ears and moving away from the wagon where she had been pulling out supplies for Applebloom to organize. "I have the steps done for you two. Wanna take a look?"

Scootaloo smiled broadly, her eyes quickly turning towards the building. "Great! Course I wanna check them out. I'm going to be walking on the things, after all." Sweetie nodded, leading the way for the two. After a close inspection, along with a few trips back to the wagon to test the steps in case the added weight of the supplies would be too much. Eventually, the young pegasus nodded. "This'll be great! We'll be able to use these steps for years if we need to!"

Sweetie gave a soft giggle, a grin plastered on her face. "Thanks! So, you and Applebloom will be bringing the stuff over now?" Scootaloo gave a nod in response, having already turned to the wagon. "Should I help with that too?"

"The more of us helping the better. We have the steps set up on both sides, too, so we won't be slowed down by each other." Sweetie gave a nod, moving to follow Scootaloo to the wagon. After a brief chat with Applebloom, Scootaloo moved away and began making the climb to the roof. She disappeared from view for a few moments, before her head popped up from the top of the roof, the small filly surveying the damage from her new vantage point. "Applebloom! You and Sweetie should start bringing stuff up now."

Applebloom nodded. "Sure! Which side?" Scootaloo looked around the roof for a moment, before shrugging with indifference. Applebloom sighed, and began tugging up what supplies she could. Sweetie held her breath for a moment as her steps creaked under the added weight, and released a breath as they held. She then turned back to the wagon, grabbing some of her own to carry over, and laid them down on the ground next to the staircase for Applebloom to get.

After fifteen minutes or so, all the supplies were up, and Applebloom and Scootaloo were awkwardly attempting to use a saw, the snap and crash of some wood, along with the cheer from the two, testified to their success. Eventually, as it was with small fillies, they fell to bickering, with Sweetie watching from below.

"Ah'm tellin' ya, that sides too weak for us to put the wood on." Applebloom brought her hoof down, the wooden framing beneath her bobbing as she did so. Scootaloo snorted, and began bouncing on the portion of the framing, smirking at Applebloom all the while.

"See? It's perfectly safe! Besides, I did all of the looking into this, so I get to be the one who decides where things go." She trotted past Applebloom, who rolled her eyes and moved to another section of the roof which still had the thatching on top, tearing it away to get to the structure beneath. Scootaloo soon came past her, pushing a large stack of wood to the corner of the roof.

The pegasus bit her lip for a moment as the framing groaned, bowing beneath the weight of both filly and wood. This was one of the sections that had collapsed slightly, and it definitely showed it. After a few moments, the wood seemed to stabilize, a faint creaking sound coming from it as Scootaloo turned, and smirked at at Applebloom. "Hah! See? Safe!"

Applebloom turned, about to reply before blinking, her mouth closing for a moment, soon reopening so she could say something else. "Um... Scootaloo? Why are you getting shorter?" That caused the pegasus to look down, both being silent for a moment, before a sharp crack filled the air. Their eyes widened, Applebloom hesitating for a moment before calling out. "Scootaloo!"

She leapt forward to push the pegasus filly away, but was too far away to do any good. The framing beneath the pegasus continued to crack, the split in the wood now obvious. Scootaloo took a single step back before it snapped apart completely, and she fell along with the wood she had along with her.

The filly screamed, her wings flaring out, but due to her young age, she wasn't able to get any lift, She slammed into the ground on her side, pain lancing through her wing and she stared up through the hole that was left. Applebloom's head came into view, frozen in an expression of worry and shock, just as the sharp pain caused the world to go black.

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Author's Notes.

Hey all! Second chapter is finally finished. Sadly, my editor is going through some things, so if it isn't great, blame my inability to self-edit.

Oh, and don't worry! Things aren't all that bad. It'll be explained in the next chapter, but I thought this would be a good cliffhanger for everypony. Besides, something similar happened to Dash (Well, the crash, anyways) in one of the episodes, so I'm still calling Slice of Life on this one.

This has been quite enjoyable to write, despite it's lateness. I hope all of those who said you'd be following it will enjoy this chapter as much as the first.