Short stories about ponies and whatnot

by shutaro

Scootaloo's agenda

The sun was slowly approaching the horizon, the birds settled in for the night and the streets of Ponyville became quieter. The lights on Sweet Apple Acres were turned out and only the solitary shine of the windows in Twilight Sparkle’s library would cast a few dim pools of light into the darkness. Soon even the sounds of the usual “Hurray, it’s weekend”-party that Pinkie Pie hosted every Friday night would fade away.

But on this special night Celestia’s special student was not alone in her nightly quest of reading and writing. Not that Scootaloo would have actually joined her in the library, but the little pegasus pony felt a little smarter and eggheady just by knowing that right now they were the only two awake in all of Ponyville.

And maybe Twilights pet owl. But he was an egghead too, Scootaloo decided. That bird lived in a library after all.

She yawned and for a moment thought about her soft bed at home. But she had told her parents that she would spend the night at the Crusader’s tree house, even if she had not mentioned that Applebloom and Sweetie Belle would not be with her.

And she couldn’t go home at this hour. Not after the embarrassment she had caused when she had forgotten her toothbrush and stumbled over her parents in the bathroom. That had been most awkward. Grown-ups playing like foals in the bathtub. She still couldn’t believe it.

But, onto business!

From her school satchel Scootaloo procured a notebook, her brand new set of coloring pencils, a few extra-thick crayons, her trusty bottle of superglue (what kind of project could start without that) and a scroll she had gotten from Spike.

That dragon would have been definite Cutie Mark Crusader material if dragons could get cutie marks. He had even recommended some books: Scootaloo had no idea what a thesaurus was, but Spike had explained that it was a dictionary that would point out different words with the same or similar meaning. He said that Twilight Sparkle used it a lot when she wrote her more complicated letters about her studies on magic to the princess and wanted to sound sophisticated.

Then he had explained what sophisticated meant.

So the thesaurus and a dictionary found their place on the little table too.

Scootaloo frowned. This was starting to look like homework but she didn’t feel any of the typical “I want to do something else, be somewhere else, let’s do this stuff later”-feeling that she normally got when an academic assignment needed sooo much preparation.

She wondered if there was a word for that feeling. Sweetie Belle might know about this. But alas, her unicorn friend was not here. She played with the thought to get her, but naww, there was work to be done.

Scootaloo opened the notebook and looked at what she had scribbled down during math class in school this morning. Yeah, it got the gist of what she wanted, but it needed to be cooler! If they ever got to use this, they would have to blow away any doubt that this was the most awesome thing ever.

Well, maybe not as awesome as Rainbow Dash, but hey! Who could top her?

When the sun send her first rays over the sky, Scootaloo had completed her task.

The scroll had been just enough to contain all of the greatest and coolest of all oaths ever conceived. She yawned, looked at the product of this night’s work again and smiled.

Then she stuffed the scroll and all the other materials back into her satchel, unrolled the sleeping bag, crawled into it and was asleep within the minute.

Rolling over in the sleeping bag, she knocked over her satchel and the contents spilled out, all over the floor. Her notebook opened on the page she had been staring at the whole night long:

We, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, elect you to join us as a fellow Cutie Mark Crusader.

You are solemnly sworn in, here this day, to become a helper to any pony looking for a cutie mark, to help them find their talents and be a friend to all your fellow Crusaders.

If you can do this, then say I swear.

Author's Note:

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The prompt: “Somepony’s losing sleep.”