SCSD

by mechafone

3 - A Blazing Introduction

Cheerilee bounced with excitement as her mother approached holding a small black box. This would be a new milestone. The orphanage didn't have any March birthdays before Spark Storm was signed in, and Cherry Joy was one of those ponies who enjoyed astrology. Cheerilee, being the clever six year old that she was, didn't hold any belief in such things, though she enjoyed indulging her mother in her eccentricities.

"So what is it?" the filly asked her mother, her eyes bright and curious.

Cherry Joy grinned and nearly dropped the box. She laid it on her bed before opening it. She retrieved a small pendant and let it dangle from it's chain to show her daughter, who smiled brightly before making a confused face. It was a beautiful gem, bright and jade. A fish. Seeing the look in her daughter's eyes, Cherry Joy rolled her own and stepped closer to Spark's crib and attached the gem to his growing set of hanging toys.

"He's a Pisces, sweety. His birthday was March 20th. He was almost an Aries..." The mare made a face as she tilted head to look at the fish jewel. "I'm glad he wasn't an Aries."

Cheerilee made another face as she stared up at the fish jewel. Sure it was pretty, but..."A fish? I don't get it. He's never even going to use a fish."

Cherry Joy let out a soft little snort/laugh at this statement. She made to answer, but went quiet as the little pegasus began to awake. He opened his big golden eyes and stared at Cherry Joy and Cheerilee before he tried to sit up and ended up rolling over onto his face. Cheerilee coo'd as Cherry Joy reached down to help the pegasus rightside up, gasping quietly when she touched him and received a small shock of static electricity. This made her giggle and redouble her efforts. "Every time, little one!" she told him, finally sitting him upright so he was looking at the two.

Cheerilee and Cherry Joy both 'ooh'd and 'aah'd for a moment, to the tiny foal's confusion. It was a short moment, though. The sounds of tiny hooves running around and causing chaos in the orphanage gave the unmistakable signal that the others were up, and from the loud, rhythmic thumping sounds it was either Banana Bolts, Pitfall or both. Mother and daughter exchanged glances for a second, then Cherry Joy sighed and slipped across her room, took a deep breath, and stepped out into filly and colt chaos.

As Cherry Joy stepped out of her room, her senses immediately went on alert. She heard mad giggling from downstairs, as well as that thumping sound. There were two pairs of it, as if two different fillies or colts were making the sound. She quickly ran to the stairs, but before she could head down them, she heard a panicked shout and quite suddenly the wood of the second floor in the middle of the area split, like a blunt object forcing it's way up. Cherry Joy let out a startled cry as she stared at the intruding object, which happened to be Banana Bolt's head.

"Wha...what? What?" she exclaimed as she stepped down the stairs slowly. The first thing she noticed was Pitfall. She wore blue boots with lightning bolt patterns on them. The second thing she noticed was that the young unicorn was bouncing. A closer look told her that Pitfall's boots had springs on them. That only made sense, considering the fact that the second pony she saw was half a pony. Banana Bolt's legs stuck out of the ceiling, while his top half sputtered and wiggled, trying to get himself out of the mess he'd gotten himself into.

"Oh, Banana Bolts...again?" Cherry Joy said with a sigh as she came down the stairs to stand under the young unicorn. "Sweetie, you've got to stop with the crazy contraptions. You're going to give yourself a terrible headache if you keep this up."

"I've...ow! Already got a headache, miss Joy!" the young colt said as he attempted to pull himself free. Finally, he freed himself with an audible pop and fell into Cherry Joy's waiting forelegs. Banana Bolts was set very carefully down upon his hooves. He smiled and started bouncing until Cherry Joy brought his bouncing to a stop with a hoof on his back. The young colt smiled sheepishly up at Cherry Joy.

"Young colt, you can go resume your playing after you take off those spring boots." Cherry Joy turned around to give Pitfall a gentle glare. "You too, missy. There's nothing wrong with having fun adventures, but this is too much. Go on, now." The two dejectedly pulled off their boots, then left all four pairs on the floor in front of their caretaker before running off together.

Cherry Joy sighed and made to pick up after the two when Stardust approached her and began to gather the boots together. "Let me, miss Joy," the pretty white earth pony filly offered. Cherry Joy smiled appreciatively, a small glint of amusement in her eye as the filly struggled with all four boots. She wordlessly stepped forward and grabbed two of the springy hoof-wear. Stardust sighed in resignation, and allowed her caretaker to help her take the boots back to their respective rooms.

"I swear, miss Joy," Stardust began, until Cherry Joy told her not to swear. "...I say, miss Joy," she corrected herself, giggling as she emphasized this with a British twang. "it's really quite a task to keep up with those two. And now..." she paused, a small cautious smile on her face. "...and now, we have a new foal in the house. It's been so long since we've gotten a new one."

"Mm," Cherry Joy mumbled in agreement. She turned as she came to Banana Bolt's room, lifting a hoof to open the door.

"Wait!" came a dismayed cry from the colt down the hall.

Too late to stop, Cherry Joy opened the door and held a boot to her chest. An arrow with a red sucker at the top shot out from a mechanism that Banana Bolts had set up in his room, planting itself firmly on the side of his own boot. Cherry Joy grinned at the unicorn's ingenuity and turned to face the colt. He blushed with embarrassment and timidly took the boot from the caretaker.

Miss Joy may have found this amusing, but Stardust did not. "Banana Bolts! How could you let miss Joy nearly take that in the face?! I keep telling you, turn that thing off...or whatever you do with it so that it doesn't shoot ponies when they open your door!"

Banana Bolts merely rolled his eyes at the older filly. He put on an air of indignity as he gathered his boots rather clumsily, opting to surround one boot with a magical aura. Still not completely practiced, the boot slid on the floor after him as he slipped beyond the door into his room. "I'd be glad to...but somepony keeps coming into my room, even after I close the door, and gets into my stuff! I had to take precautions."

Stardust, hardly looking impressed, gestured to Cherry Joy's chest, and then stood under the adult's legs, coming up short from the targeted area by about three inches. "Your calculations are off, Banana Bolts, it's too high for the other kids. The only pony in here that'd get hit was going to be miss Joy!"

Banana Bolts popped out of his room, hoof raised and mouth open to retort, but he reneged on what he was going to say and smiled sheepishly up at Cherry Joy. "Uh...I'll make adjustments?"

"Or you could just leave your door cracked, like everypony else," Stardust countered. "Right, miss Joy?" When the caretaker didn't respond, both unicorn and earth pony glanced at Cherry Joy, who seemed to have spaced out. She looked tired - sunken eyes, slack expression. "Um...miss Joy?"

Cherry took a moment to respond. She gasped and looked down at the children and smiled. Almost instantly the tired look was gone from her face. "Stardust is right, Bolts. You should take better care of your things. If you kept your things off the floor, like I told you to, you wouldn't have this problem with others taking your things much, and I wouldn't get suckered in the face whenever I open your door." She chuckled and ruffled Banana Bolts' head, then made her way down the hall, leaving the two children to frown as they watched her go. Something was wrong.

---

Cherry Joy sighed as she stepped into her room. She was so very tired. Taking care of so many fillies and colts all day, every day was taxing, and it was starting to show. She'd just blanked out right there in front of the kids! The young mother stepped over to the new baby's crib. When she saw her own daughter lying asleep next to little Spark Storm, her heart melted. She hadn't seen her daughter all day, and now she knew why. Just seeing the two of them together like this made the long, rough days so worth it.

The adult reached down into the crib and gently scooped her daughter up into her hooves. Cheerilee made a soft whining protest as her mother set her on the bed nearby. She rubbed her eyes and stared blearily up at her mother. "Cheerilee, you know you're not supposed to nap so late in the afternoon, now you'll be up all night," her mother scolded gently, though she tried hard not to fall prey to her daughter's natural cuteness.

Cheerilee smiled up at her mother before moving to the edge of the bed and wrapping her forelegs around her mother's neck. Cherry Joy, with a happy sigh, returned the hug, pulling her daughter against her to support her as the little one's legs dangled over the floor. "Can we keep him?" Cheerilee asked the second time since Spark Storm had come under their care. Cherry Joy just laughed and nuzzled her daughter.

"We're already keeping him, sweetheart-"

"No. I mean I want to keep him...with us," Cheerilee whispered.

Cherry Joy stared down at her daughter in surprise. Keep him? She didn't mean...? Before she could ask Cheerilee if she meant what she thought she said, the little filly dropped to the floor and ran to the door. "I'll go help out with dinner, momma," she said, and slipped out the door, leaving her mother and Spark Storm alone in the room.

Cherry Joy sighed after a moment of watching the spot where her daughter had just been. She couldn't just take Spark Storm in, he needed to stay in the orphanage, to just suddenly join their family was out of the question. And what of the other children? Cherry Joy sighed and shook her head as she turned to see that Spark Storm was just waking. Upon seeing the earth pony, Spark began to fuss, on the verge of crying. It would be an early dinner for this pegasus.

---

That night, after Cherry Joy had called for lights out, Cheerilee lay in her bed, completely incapable of getting to sleep. As her mother had told her, taking a nap in the afternoon meant she would get little to no sleep that night. Her thoughts of little foal Spark Storm swam in her thoughts, and the possibility of bringing him into her family. She named him after all, it was only natural.

By two in the morning, Cheerilee had given up on trying to sleep and was deep in an informative book on the Everfree Forest when it happened: there was a knock at the door downstairs. It was loud and firm - no mistaking that for a branch hitting a window. When her mother hadn't gotten up to answer the door, Cheerilee crept slowly downstairs and stopped at the door to stare at it, wondering if perhaps another knock would come. After a moment it became obvious that this wouldn't happen, so the little filly crept closer, and finally opened the door, expecting an adult.

Instead, Cheerilee saw that the doorway was empty. Nopony here. She looked left, then right. With a small shrug, Cheerilee began to close the door when she happened to glance down. Somepony had left a bundle with a scroll on top of it. She gingerly picked up the scroll, which held a simple title etched in the wood of the handle: To the owner of the orphanage.

Her heart suddenly racing, Cheerilee set down the scroll and picked up the bundle in her forelegs as she sat down. She pulled the flaps back in a rush, and revealed a brightly colored yellow pegasus foal. Cheerilee's eyes widened as she examined the little baby. There were some early tell-tail markings of orange stripes. This wasn't a full-blooded pony - it was a hybrid child, the product of a pegasus and some other species, one that Cheerilee couldn't quite place at the moment. Regardless, this was something that had to be taken to her mother. She rebundled the little colt, who stared at her with big blue eyes, grabbed the scroll in her mouth, closed the door, and headed upstairs to her mother's room.

Cheerilee crept inside, and carefully pulled herself up onto her mother's bed. Cherry Joy had passed out from exhaustion earlier, and hadn't even bothered to get under the covers. Spark Storm lay asleep in his crib, peacefully sound asleep, which Cheerilee found she would have to be careful to maintain. She set the bundle gently at the foot of the bed, and unbundled the colt so that his face could be seen, then spat out the scroll and reached over to gently tap at her mother's shoulder. "Mom. Momma. Mom. Mommy. Mom. Mom."

Cherry Joy groaned softly and opened her eyes, a gentle grumpy look on her face as she laid eyes on her daughter. "Cheerilee? What are you doing up so late?" She turned her head to look at the little red digits on the clock by the bedside and frowned. "Honey, it's two-thirty, what are you-?" She stopped when she finally noticed the little colt at the foot of the bed. "...Oh my." The caretaker eased herself up into bed and carefully pulled the little colt into her forelegs, a tired smile on her face.

"There's a scroll here, mom," Cheerilee added, picking up the scroll for her mother to see.

"Read it to me, sweety," Cherry told her gently as she looked the colt over.

Cheerilee crawled around behind her mother and switched on the lamp, then crawled back and obediently pulled the scroll open, her eyes rolling over the words for a moment before she began to read what it said.

To the owner of the Ponyville orphanage.

We talked it over and have agreed, we can not raise this foal in the conditions we live in. Therefore, we place him in the care of your most capable hooves in the hopes that he will find a loving family and live a peaceful life. His name is Blazing Feathers.

We thank you for your kind heart and leave you this foal from the bottom of our own.

Cheerilee frowned as she finished. She turned the scroll over, held it upside down, turned it all around, and finally shrugged as she rolled it back up. "They didn't leave any names."

"Mm, they wouldn't," Cherry said. She made a face suddenly, and stared down at little Blazing. "Oh, my. You haven't been here five minutes and you're already making yourself at home," she said with a chuckle while making a face at the smell rising from inside the colt's covers. A moment later, the foal awoke and began crying at the discomfort he'd discovered. Cherry Joy's face turned into a mask of dismay at the crying woke Spark Storm. "Oh, no..."

Cheerilee, sensing her mother's stress levels skyrocketing, smiled for her mother and hopped off the bed and maneuvered Spark out of his crib carefully. "I've got this momma. You take care of Blazing, and I'll get Sparky back to sleep."

A tired, but grateful look spread over her mother's face. "Thank you, Cheerilee. What would I do without you?" The tired caretaker of this growing orphanage slipped out of bed with Blazing and carried him to a separate room. The children would undoubtedly awaken, but they would find out eventually, anyway. In the previously empty room, Cherry Joy unbundled the colt and began to clean him. While she had him finally exposed to the elements, she looked over the markings on his body, a surprised look in her eye. "Zebra...you're part zebra. That's definitely a first for my orphanage...I think it's a first for Ponyville!"

As she cleaned Blazing Feathers and got him a fresh diaper, a collection of young faces crowded around the door, rumors spreading back and forth among them and somehow mixing up the original message, even though they all stood directly next to each other, some even standing on top of the others. A new face had arrived.

Author's Note:

Aaaaand surprise! SCSD is back in circulation. With the help of some friends, I've decided to make some additions to Spark's world. How this will work and/or fit into the future of the Spark Storm universe, I guess we'll have to see. For now, say hello to Blazing Feathers, an oc creation of my pal musicbrush.

Comments

[Melody Brush]

Soul Of Songs! You did great with him! I can't wait to see what you do next!

[Jacensolo43]

Hold up. Spark's birthday is on March 20th? His birthday's just around the corner. You got something planned for him?

[mechafone]

2225119 D: This hadn't even occurred to me. Perhaps I should plan something...

[Jacensolo43]

2225531 Your welcome.