The Crusaders learn that they aren't like other ponies. As they uncover the secrets of their origins, the trio grow closer than ever, discovering not only their unique nature, but the incredible power that comes with it as well.
A minor injury leads Apple Bloom to learn that she and the other Crusaders aren't like normal ponies. Not having their marks has always been their common bond, but as the trio uncover their unique nature, it becomes clear that their lives are intertwined on a much deeper level. As they learn the secrets of their shared past, it leads to revelations about their friendship, families, and their long sought after talents. What they discover and accomplish along the way is beyond what anypony would have thought possible.
The porch door slammed loudly, accompanied by the sound of small, hurried hooves clomping up the stairs.
"Apple Bloom, that better not be you slammin' the door again!" Applejack shouted from the kitchen. Getting no response, she took off her apron and left Granny Smith to continue folding the fritters.
"AB?" she said again, following the muddy hoofprints up the stairs. "AB, what've I told ya about wipin' yer hooves before ya come in the house?" Still though, she didn't get a reply.
As Applejack approached the young filly's bedroom door, she heard sniffling. She pushed the door open slowly, and softened her tone. "Hey sugarcube. What's wrong?"
"Nothin'," Apple Bloom said, wiping her eyes with her forehooves, "Just, ya know, foals at school."
"What'd they do this time?" Applejack said, sitting on the familiar bed beside the young pony.
"The usual... 'blank flank' and all that. They saw me an' Sweetie an' Scoots crash our wagon after we all said we'd get our racing cutie marks."
"That how ya got those scratches?" Applejack said, pointing to the muddy welts on Apple Bloom's shoulder.
"Yeah..." Apple Bloom said, dejectedly.
"Hang on a sec. Lemme go get something to clean that up."
Applejack returned a moment later with a couple of wet rags and a bottle of ointment from the bathroom.
"Alright, go ahead and tell me what happened next," she said while starting to wipe away some of the mud from the injuries.
"They said I must just be a big baby and lyin' about my age if I still didn't have a cutie mark."
"Oh sugarcube, you know you can't let 'em get to ya. Every pony gets their cutie mark when it's time. It don't have nothin' to do with how old ya are."
Apple Bloom looked Applejack right in the eyes. "Then how come they all got theirs already?"
"Oh, like who?" Applejack said, continuing to daub at the cuts on Apple Bloom's shoulder.
"Well, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon both have theirs."
Applejack knew the names as two of her sister's primary tormentors. She'd had a talk with Filthy Rich about the bullying already, and while the stallion wasn't disagreeable, it was clear he wasn't exactly involved much in his daughter's life and wasn't likely to make Diamond change her ways. Silver Spoon was just a lackey as far as Applejack could tell. She'd stop when Diamond did.
"Really... and what are their special talents?"
Apple Bloom had never really thought of that. They had their marks, and that's what mattered to the other colts and fillies, but what did they actually do?
"Umm, I guess they're really rich?"
"And you're jealous of that?" Applejack frowned as she looked at the cloth she'd been using to clean the wounds.
"No, of course not sis. I don't wanna be some snooty richfilly. Wait," she said, catching her sister's odd frown at the sight of the cloth. "Why're ya makin' that face? Am I hurt bad or somethin'?"
"Uh, no... it's not bad. Ya just keep gettin' in so many accidents I'm runnin' outta clean bandages. Anyways, why are ya so worried about them gettin' their marks already?"
"I don't know..."
"Did ya ever think that maybe their special talents are just easy and borin' and that's why they got their marks already? Maybe yer takin' longer to find yours ‘cause it's special and unique, not just 'bein' rich and snooty' like them two."
"Ya really think that might be true?" Apple Bloom said.
"Of course I do. Ah know yer special, and I promise ya, one day the whole world will know it too. You just have to be strong 'till then, ya hear me?"
Apple Bloom sniffled and tried to dry her eyes a bit more. "Okay."
"Good. Now why don't ya come downstairs and have a couple fritters and maybe some ice cream," Applejack said, smiling and ushering the filly off the bed and out the door. "I know that always makes me feel a mite better."
Apple Bloom gladly followed her sister downstairs and enjoyed a pleasant treat. With a full stomach, it wasn't hard for Applejack to usher her off to bed either. The young filly had already had a busy day, and convincing her to tuck in early on a full belly of ice cream and apple fritters wasn't that difficult. But despite a willingness to go to bed, Apple Bloom's mind was still ablaze with the problems of the day, and she found it hard to sleep. As she was tossing and turning, she heard Big Mac and Applejack start talking downstairs.
They were being quiet, but in the absolute silence of a rural farmhouse, even the slightest noise was pretty easy to pick out. She'd heard a lot of these conversations over the years, as her big siblings discussed farm business and other trivia on a regular basis, sometimes late into the night. Most times, the soft voices helped her fall asleep, as the reassuring sounds of family nearby helped drive away any foalish notions of monsters and other fears of the night. This time though, she couldn't help but pick up the sound of her own name several times.
It was a popular farm saying that "curiosity killed the cat" and every time Apple Bloom heard it, she was reassured by the fact that she was actually not a cat, but a pony. Said reassurance firmly in mind, she crept out of her room and onto the balcony overlooking the lower floor. There she laid and listened to her siblings below.
"Ah tell ya Big Mac, she's gonna find out soon enough, an if she don't, then somepony else is gonna see her when she gets hurt and bleedin' like that and know somethin' ain't right."
"Eeyup."
"Or maybe even worse, she's gonna keep gettin' teased about the cutie mark thing, and everypony's gonna figure it out. I mean, she's still young enough that it ain't too unusual for now, but another year or two and there ain't gonna be no excuses left."
"Eeyup."
"Ya got any idea what we should do?"
"Eenope."
"Me neither, Mac. Me neither."
Realizing she'd caught only the tail end of things and the conversation was now over, Apple Bloom quickly scurried back to her room. Just as she got back to bed, she heard her sister's hoofsteps coming up the stairs. The cat may be doomed, she thought, marveling at her perfect timing, but "Cutie Mark Crusaders: Secret Spies" had a nice ring to it. The elation at a successful intel operation lasted only a few seconds though, and was quickly overshadowed by the content of said intel. Needless to say, Apple Bloom didn't sleep very well that night, worrying about just what her sister wasn't telling her. What'd Applejack mean about "bleedin' like that"? She didn't know, but she was determined to find out.
----
The next morning, Apple Bloom again used her super secret spy skills to pilfer a knife—from the completely unattended kitchen—and put it in her saddle bags to hide in the clubhouse before school. As soon as Sweetie and Scootaloo showed up, she let them know she was calling an emergency meeting of the CMC, right after class.
Waiting for class to end, as every foal knows, is the hardest thing in the world though, and the day felt as if it lasted forever. When the last few minutes finally rolled around, all of the Cutie Mark Crusaders were doing little more than staring at the classroom clock, waiting for it to tick over to the magical 3:15 moment when school was let out.
As the bell rung, the CMC members were out the door and down the path towards their "secret" clubhouse. Yes, a lot of ponies actually knew where the clubhouse was, being pretty visible from several roads, but it was still secret, because only CMC members were allowed inside.
"So what's so important," Sweetie Belle asked, "that we need an emergency meeting, AB?"
"Yeah, Bloom, I'm missing Rainbow Dash's practice for this," Scootaloo said.
"Ya don't think the CMC is as important as watching Rainbow?" Apple Bloom said.
"Yeah, of course I do, but I don't want to waste my time unless we got something important to do. So whatcha got?"
Apple Bloom, so confident until now, had a moment of doubt. "Do ya'll trust me?"
"Of course," said the unicorn.
"Why wouldn't we?" Said the pegasus.
"Well..." Apple Bloom nervously rubbed one forehoof across the other as she stared at the floor.
"What is it AB?" Sweetie said, nuzzling her friend.
"It's just... I think there's something wrong with me. I ain't normal."
"What?" Scootaloo looked at Apple Bloom, head tilted.
"I don't think I'm like a normal pony. Somethin's wrong with me."
Sweetie Belle, still physically consoling her, said "AB, you gotta tell us more than that. We're your friends forever, I promise." Sweetie held up a hoof to her heart.
"Me too," Scootaloo said, likewise holding her forehoof to her barrel.
"Okay, so," Apple Bloom began. "I heard my brother and sister talkin' last night when they thought I was asleep..."
Apple Bloom told the story as she knew it, and then looked at her friends and asked, "What color do normal ponies bleed?"
"Bloom, seriously!" Sweetie interjected. "What kind of a question is that?"
Apple Bloom pulled out the knife she'd earlier smuggled from the kitchen.
"What color do they bleed?"
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle looked at each other, unsure how to handle this. Their friend was obviously going off the deep end, and neither of them knew what to do.
"Answer me!" Apple Bloom demanded.
"Red, AB... blood is red," Sweetie finally answered.
"Mine ain't," Apple Bloom said, slicing a short cut into her pastern with the knife. Sure enough, the liquid that flowed from the cut wasn't red, but was a dark brown, muddy substance.
Sweetie and Scootaloo were both taken aback, staring in confusion.
"AB, what's going on?" Scootaloo asked.
"Me. That's me. I don't bleed right. My sister said as much to Big Mac, and you said it yourself. Normal ponies bleed red."
"Bloom... listen to me," Sweetie said, stepping hesitantly towards the nervous earth pony, "Just put down the knife. We can figure this out, it's not a big deal."
"Not for you maybe, you've got red blood, right?"
"Umm... I think so." Sweetie tried to remember the last time she'd cut herself, but drew a blank.
"Go ahead, show me." Apple Bloom tossed the knife onto the floor in front of the white unicorn. "I'm not sayin' you have to hurt yourself much, just a little cut."
"AB, I don't think this is..."
"Don't tell me what's right. I bleed mud. That's definitely not right. What about you?"
Sweetie Belle looked at the knife on the ground, its cutting edge covered in a slight sheen of what looked like brown clay. Then she looked up at the eyes of her friend, who was questioning her very existence. Taking the knife, she didn't have to think long. "I'm with you AB... Cutie Mark Crusaders forever!" She said, as she drew the knife across the top of her foreleg a short distance. It stung, it really did, but then again, so did a paper cut.
What really shocked was the luminescent blue glow that seeped out of the wound where blood should be. Sweetie's eyes went wide with shock, and she stared directly at Apple Bloom for answers. "What is this? What's happening?"
Apple Bloom was just as surprised as her friend though. "I... I don't know. I thought I was the only one. My sister talked about how I didn't bleed right, and I still had no cutie mark. I didn't know it was gonna be you too!"
"What about you Scoots?" Sweetie asked, her voice dropping to a dazed monotone. "What color do you bleed?"
Scootaloo was in utter shock and couldn't even respond. She just shook her head in response.
"Come on... we both found out," Sweetie insisted, moving toward the unusually nervous pegasus. "What about you?"
Scootaloo inched back from the other two fillies, scared of how they were acting.
"Come on Sweetie," Apple Bloom said. "Leave her alone. If she doesn't want to, that's fine."
Sweetie turned her head and glared at Apple Bloom. "No," she said in an unusually calm voice, "We all need to know where we stand." She turned again and looked at Scootaloo.
"Stay away from me you... you... whatever you are!" the pegasus muttered, backing away from the creature with the glowing blue blood..
"What's the matter, Scootaloo? Are you chicken?" Sweetie Belle said.
"Sweetie!" Apple Bloom said, jumping between the other fillies. "What the hay is wrong with you? That's our friend!"
Sweetie shook her head to clear it. "Oh no... what did I just say?"
"You called Scoots a chicken!"
"Oh... no... no, I didn't mean it," Sweetie said, turning to look at Scootaloo. "I don't know what I was thinking. I'm so sorry Scootaloo. I'm just in shock. I didn't mean it, I promise!"
All three fillies sat in silence for a moment, the only sounds coming from the perfectly normal day outside, with wind blowing through the trees, cattle lowing in the distance, and the occasional chirps of nearby birds.
Scootaloo wasn't sure what to think. She really, really wanted to run away and hide, but she also knew these two were her real, actual, and forever friends, no matter what Sweetie might have said in a moment of panic. Something was going on, and she knew it didn't matter how fearful you felt, you were only a chicken if you acted on that fear. She had to join her friends in figuring this out.
"Cutie Mark Crusaders forever," she said softly. "Right? I really wouldn't be much of a friend if I chickened out now, would I?"
"Oh Scootaloo, I really didn't..."
"It's okay Sweetie, I know you didn't. Just gimme the knife and let's get this over with."
Sweetie pushed the implement across the floor with her hoof, and Scootaloo picked it up and made a hesitant slash across her pastern as well.
What came out was nothing but water.
"What does that prove?" Scootaloo said, getting nervous again, "It just means we were wrong... Not all ponies bleed red. I mean, I bet if Rainbow Dash gets hurt, she probably bleeds rainbows! All unicorns probably bleed glowy magic goop too!" She said, pointing at the fading blue glow from Sweetie's cut.
Sweetie looked down at her foreleg. "I don't think so Scoots... I know blood is supposed to be red."
The slight blue glow on the cut seemed to pulse. Still in a state of shock, Sweetie picked up the knife again, and brought it back to the same wound.
"Sweetie, what're you doing?" Apple Bloom demanded, as the knife floated over her friend's foreleg.
"I need to know," the unicorn said, and sliced deeper with the knife. As she did so, it grated against something hard.
"Sweetie, stop!" Apple Bloom called. "Don't hurt yourself!"
"It... It doesn't hurt... much." Sweetie wiggled and sliced a bit deeper into her foreleg, surprised herself at the relative lack of pain. She peeled back a piece of flesh. Underneath, she stared at a chromium piston, slowly expanding and contracting with each small movement of her hoof. Probing further, she found more pistons, as well as various struts, pivots, and other linkages where there should have been bones, tendon, and muscle.
Over the metal components was the white, rubbery "flesh" she'd just cut through. It seemed to be there only to give her leg shape beneath the skin and fur, as it showed no signs of contraction or other movement like a normal muscle would. It also seemed to be the source of the blue liquid, which oozed surprisingly slowly from where she'd cut, despite being a relatively thin fluid. Barely enough of the "blood" had been spilled to do more than run slightly down her fetlock, despite the deep cuts she'd made.
After a moment, Sweetie stopped digging and looked up. She held her foreleg out in front of her friends, prying open the wound with magic so they could see clearly what was inside. "How do you explain this?" She demanded.
The other fillies stared in wonder at the subtly moving mechanisms, and had no answer at all.
----
"She was worried," Applejack said. "Really worried, Mac."
Apple Bloom was again laying on the balcony and listening to her older siblings talk. She'd stayed in the clubhouse for hours after both Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle left, quietly crying to herself off and on, wondering what in the world was wrong with her. Then, by the time she got home, she was in trouble with Applejack for being so late. She'd been late before though, and while her sister was never happy about it, it was usually just a few mild admonishments. This time though, Applejack had sent her straight to her room and told her she was grounded. By then, Apple Bloom had no will left to resist, and meekly clomped up the stairs and threw herself onto her bed, occasional tears soaking into her pillow.
For an hour, she'd heard Applejack pacing back and forth downstairs, hooves softly tapping against the wooden floor. The conversation had started the second Big Mac walked in the door. When she heard Applejack's frantic words burst out, Apple Bloom herself wasted no time sneaking out onto the balcony to listen in, working extra hard to stop her sniffling so she wouldn't be discovered.
"She said Sweetie was almost catatonic," Applejack continued. "Mutterin' nonsense about monsters with bad blood in between fits of tears, and that there was a pretty bad cut on her leg. She told me all Sweetie would say about what happened was that it was Apple Bloom's fault. I tell ya Mac, I know Rares can be a bit melodramatic, but this weren't one of her normal fits... this was the real deal. She was on the verge of tears, worried about her sister."
"Eeyup," Big Mac said.
"Ya know the worst part? When she asked me if I had any idea what was goin' on, and I just stood there tellin' her I hadn't the foggiest. At least AB still weren't back yet, so I didn't have to lie about that too."
Apple Bloom heard sniffling, and her brother's heavy footsteps as he went to hug Applejack.
"Thanks Mac, Ah just... Ah don't know what ta do. When Bloom came home, I couldn't even look her in the eye. I just yelled at her and sent her off to bed for being late. I'm worried Mac... Do ya think AB's figured it out? Do you think she knows she's not a real pony?"
At that, Apple Bloom couldn't take it anymore. The words stung and cut far worse than any knife, and she burst into tears. Her older siblings heard the sudden sobs from the balcony above them and looked up. "Apple Bloom?" Applejack said, the fear and realization that she'd been overheard nearly choking the word from her throat. She got only more sobs in return.
"Oh sugarcube," Applejack said. "Come on down here."
Apple Bloom stood up and slowly plodded down the stairs, sniffling and pausing to wipe her eyes a couple of times on the way. When she got to the bottom she stood by the door and just stared at her sister and brother, barely even blinking.
"Oh AB," Applejack said, starting to walk towards her little sister. "I don't know how much you heard, but..."
"I heard enough!" Apple Bloom said, stepping back slightly as Applejack tried to hug her.
"It's okay Bloom, ah promise, me an' Mac are here for ya."
Apple Bloom stood still for a moment, her breathing fast and deliberate, then she rushed forward and wrapped her forelegs around her sister and bawled out "What do you mean I'm not real?"
"Ah mean... ah know I bleed mud, but..." Apple Bloom said haltingly, still wracked with sobbing as she hugged her sister as tight as she could. "But I ain't a monster, am I?"
"No no, of course not!" Applejack said, separating herself from Apple Bloom to look her in the eye.
"But... but how can you know I'm a real pony? I mean, it ain't right to be made o' mud an ya know it, so how can ya know I'm real?"
Big Mac walked over and poked Apple Bloom in the ribs, surprising her just enough to make her stop rambling.
"Ya seem real enough to me, little Apple," he said. "And I reckon I know a thing or two about apples."
"Besides," Mac continued, winking at her. "Ya ain't doubtin' your sister's honesty now are ya?"
Apple Bloom knew her sister was the element of Honesty, and while she disagreed and even fought with her sister about a lot of things, she knew the only thing stronger than Applejack's honesty was her love for her family.
"No, I ain't doubtin' that," she said, hanging her head somewhat.
Big Mac put his massive hoof under her chin and raised it to look him directly in the eye. "Listen here sis, ah may not know a lot o' things, but I do know one. We're a family. That means we stick together no matter what. Bein' an Apple isn't just about yer name, or yer cutie mark, or even the color of yer blood. It goes deeper. We're Apples, down to our roots, and that includes you. So don't ya ever start thinkin' ya don't belong, that ya ain't real, or that we don't love ya more than anything else in the world, okay?"
Apple Bloom looked at him and nodded, "Okay."
"Good, now come here," Mac said, wrapping Apple Bloom up in a big hug that left her back hooves dangling several feet above the ground before setting her back down.
After Applejack joined in for another group hug, Apple Bloom had mostly stopped sniffling and was feeling a lot less worried.
"But even if I ain't a monster," Apple Bloom said. "Why am I made 'a mud?"
"I guess I should take this one, eh Mac?" Applejack said, looking at her brother.
"Eeyup."
"Alright, but why don't we go get some hot cider in the kitchen first. This one might take a while in the tellin'."
----
So I've told ya before what happened to Ma and Pa, but I think ah probably left out just how badly I really took it. Ah mean, me and Mac, we got on with the farm work pretty quickly. Can't reckon we had a choice there, as there's always a lot that needs doin'. But while I was bein' all strong on the outside, inside I was still heartbroken for a long time. Even a year after they were gone, I'd still find myself cryin' into my pillow like a little filly. Come mornin' though, I'd put on a tough face and go start buckin' more apples.
The problem is, when ya bottle up yer feelings like that, it don't always help you get through 'em. So while everypony else was puttin' the past further behind them, for me, up in my head, it was just gettin' worse an' worse.
One day, I was cleaning out one of the barns and I came across somethin' that made me just break down cryin' on the spot. I'm sure it woulda looked quite silly to anypony else, but I was cryin' over a dang scarecrow. The reason was that Pa and I had been workin' on it right before he died. We'd made half a dozen or so for the fields that year already, but he figured we needed one more to keep the birds away from one of the far groves, so we were finishin' up the last one when him and Ma passed, and in all the grief and such I'd forgotten about it.
We'd just been startin' to put the hay on it, and now what was there had mostly dried out, loosenin' the vines and causing it to shed. I know it seems a mite silly, but I just couldn't leave it like that. I had to finish the thing. So, I started sneakin' out to that old barn late at night, or the middle of the day when I was sure Mac weren't gonna be around to see me. I felt like a foolish little filly, both for what I was doin' and for how I was tryin' to hide it, then doubly so because I kept breaking down crying every time I went near the dang thing.
I don't know if Mac or Granny has told you anything about makin' a scarecrow, but it's a bit more complicated than ya might think. A proper farm-pony lookin' scarecrow takes a few steps, and it's kinda a tradition to do it right. As such, the progress was slow. When ya make these things in prime season, they hay has dried just enough that it's done shrinkin', but not so much that it's become brittle. Out of season, I found myself having to tear apart entire hay bales to find a few slightly less dried out strands in the middle. That meant hauling them out of the big hay barn without getting noticed. Then I found myself with a huge pile of loose, discarded hay starting to fill the barn where I was working.
As I worked and wove the small bits of salvaged hay onto it, it started to look more and more like a pony. This reminded me more and more of how much I missed Ma and Pa though, and one day, as I turned around, I saw the foreleg I'd just finished, and for a brief second, I thought it was Pa standing over me. Then I realized I couldn't even remember what his hooves actually looked like. He'd picked me up thousands of times with those hooves, led me to my first day of school with them, even worked on this very scarecrow right beside me with those same hooves, and I couldn't even remember what they looked like. How long were his fetlocks? I couldn't remember even that, and the sense of loss nearly sent me into a panic. If I could forget such common things about my own parents, then I might forget everything about 'em!
Then I had an idea. I was finishing this because it was the last thing Pa had worked on, but I reckoned maybe it could help me remember them in more ways as well. That hoof reminded me of Pa? Well, that was good. Ah figured I could make all the details fit, remember them both. The way Ma's ears always perked up when Pa and Mac came in from the fields for dinner and how her mane always got into her eyes on windy days, or the way Pa's brow wrinkled when he was ponderin' something difficult, and that glint in his eyes when he finally figured it out. I knew I wasn't an artist, but I was determined, and set to work.
It was even slower goin' after that, partly because of the clandestine nature of it, but also my lack of real skill. Normally that weren't a problem, but once I decided this was about the details, I quickly became a perfectionist, and there ain't nothing slower than an unskilled perfectionist!
I think Mac and Granny both knew something was up, as I was gettin' very little sleep, comin' in late at night or even early in the mornin'. They both left me to it though.
When I finished all the hay, I felt pretty darn proud of myself. I think I might even've smiled a bit, and if I did, it was probably the first time in months I'd done so. Next up though was the covering, and for that I knew I'd have to work in Ma's old sewin' room, and that'd be a bit harder to hide.
The first day I got up into the sewing room though, I came across a nearly finished scarecrow covering in the closet. Ma must've been working on it the same time Pa and I were building that last scarecrow. I'd been doin' pretty good for the previous weeks, but seein' that made me lose it again. After a while I recovered my wits though, and cranked up the sewing machine to finish the cover. Ah ain't no seamstress like Ma was, but it was so close to complete that it took me only an hour or so to finish up the last pieces. After that, I dug around a bit in the closet and found her bag of what we always called "scarecrow fixin's." That is, a bunch of knick knacks that can be used for eyes, manes, tails, and that sorta thing.
Well, when I got to the barn, that cover fit just perfect, and I barely had to hem or tuck anything once it was in place. That never happens. Well, least not for farm pony scarecrows. This one though, it was lookin' just like the best of the craft show types I'd ever seen. The only thing off about it was it'd yellowed a bit from the year or so it'd spent in the closet up in the attic. I thought about maybe dyin' it, but somehow it just looked right as it was.
After that, I started to rummage around in the bag of fixin's. Nothin' looked right for a mane or tail, but there were these two big buttons. What caught my attention though were the red and gold shimmer they had, which reminded me instantly of Pa's eyes. I'd just finished sewing them on when I heard the rattle of a wagon coming up the field, so I rushed out the back of the barn, and then came trotting up along side Mac as though I'd been off in the orchards, and walked on with him back towards the house.
As we went past the south pond though, Mac just stopped and sat down. I thought that was a bit strange, but figured maybe he just needed to rest his hooves for a bit. I didn't much feel like talkin' so I just stood around by the wagon waitin' for him to get back up. After a good fifteen minutes though, he still weren't budgin'. We hadn't said much to each other since I'd been workin' on the scarecrow, so I tried to break the ice with a bit of a jokin' question.
"What's a matter, Mac? You watchin' the sunset or somethin'?"
"Eeyup," was all he said.
Now, I'd been pretty consumed by my own pain for the better part of a year at this point. To my great embarrassment, I don't think in all that time I'd ever really considered how my own brother was doin'. We've talked about it a lot since then o' course, and grown a lot closer because of it, but what I didn't know at the time was that he had sat by that pond and watched the sunset every single day since our parents had died. That day was the first time I sat with him out there, and we watched as Celestia slowly lowered the sun behind the far hills and forest.
As the red and gold of sunset shined across the fields and the pond, this evenin' breeze came blowing through, rustling all the reeds and rushes. My eye caught on a tuft of red grass that was fluttering in the wind just in front of the pond, and as the water rippled with the gust, small glints of waning sunlight shined through the blades, like bright eyes behind a wisp of mane. In that moment, I knew I had found the perfect mane and tail, like Celestia had pointed them out just for me or somethin'. I don't think Mac knew why I suddenly started crying that day, but he leaned over against me, put one one leg around me, and we just sat like that until the fireflies came out.
The next day I went and gathered the most beautiful tufts of that red grass I could find. I wove and tied it into a long tail and a sculpted mane like how Ma used to wear her's. Pretty soon I was finished, and found myself looking at this image of a pony that could almost have been related to me, blending as it did the best parts from Ma and Pa both.
It still felt like it was missing somethin' though, so I dug through the bag for some more accessories. There was an old pair of glasses, but that didn't seem right. There was also a plow harness, some sort of wooden sword, a corn cob pipe—which I figured was meant more for snowponies in the winter—and lastly an old hat with some pink ribbon tied around it.
I tried putting the hat on the scarecrow, but it just didn't look right. So I took the ribbon off and tried just the hat. I kinda liked the look, but it still didn't feel right. Then I got an idea, and used the ribbon to tie back some of the mane like I'd seen Ma do when she was going into town sometimes. It was a bit more frilly than I'd normally go for, but it reminded me so much of Ma that I just knew it was right.
Then it hit me.
It was done.
I'd shunted so much of my pain and loss into this project that I'd almost started to feel normal again. But as soon as I realized it was finished, that this was it, the last time I'd ever work on something with Pa or Ma... all the pain came rushing back. It was like saying goodbye to them all over again. I was once more tossed out into the darkness on my own, and felt like the weight o' the whole world was bearing down on my heart, trying to snuff it out.
As I lay there in the dust and hay, crying and crying, I kept trying to tell myself it was gonna be okay. I still had McIntosh... I still had Granny. I wasn't really alone. But ya can tell yerself some things all ya want. Believin' them is somethin' else entirely, and at that moment, I didn't believe myself one bit. I was still crying when Mac found me sometime after midnight, when him an' Granny had started to worry about me and gone searching. I think he pretty much carried me back to the house and put me to bed. The next day I didn't even get up 'cept to use the bathroom. I didn't eat, and I couldn't sleep that next night either. In my head, everything had just gone pitch dark and I couldn't see a way out. I was losin' all sight of everything that mattered, and had never felt so lost and helpless in my life.
The next day was even worse.
Then on the third day I got out of bed and went back to work. I wasn't better, it was just that the concern from Mac and Granny was making it worse. I didn't deserve their sympathy or their attention. I wasn't worth anything. Nothing was worth anything anymore. I didn't change my mind on that, but went back to work and pretended things were fine so they'd stop tryin' to help me and just leave me alone.
Now I'm mighty ashamed of this next bit, but it was gettin' bad enough that I found myself up on the big barn fixin' the roof, lookin' off the edge all the way down to the ground, and actually wondering if this was high enough for it to be a quick way to end it. Now, ah can't rightly say if I ever might've done it, but thankfully I didn't have to find out, because the oddest thing I'd ever experienced—at least up until that point of my life—happened. A pink mare offered me a cupcake.
Now, I know Pinkie right well these days, bein' one of the Elements and all, and her antics don't really come as a surprise anymore. But back then, I'd only met her a couple times after she'd moved to town, and that'd almost always been at the bakery, the market, or at some town-wide event. Finding her behind me on the roof of my own barn, bouncing up and down and holding out a frosted cupcake with a single lit candle in it was, to put it mildly, quite shocking, especially when ya consider that the only ladder up to the roof was directly in front of me and I'd been staring at it the whole time.
I tried to ask her how she got up there, what she was doing, and of course why in the world she was trying to give me a cupcake. All I got out of her was that she thought I needed it, but she insisted before I ate it I had to close my eyes and make a wish. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I think it was something rather rude and that I just wanted her to go away, which was the only reason I even played along and blew out the darn candle in the first place. Pinkie was gone before I even opened my eyes, and all I saw was a cupcake in my hoof with a now extinguished candle. I nearly threw it off the roof at that point, but then I realized that while I may have said one thing just to get rid of Pinkie, deep inside I'd actually been wishing quite sincerely for something else. In fact, I'd been doing nothing but wishing for one thing for over a year at that point. I just wanted to see them again.
I musta been quite a sight, sittin' on the peak of that high roof, sobbing and wailing with a cupcake balanced in one hoof and a roofing hammer in the other. Eventually though, I had to go down, and I wasn't quite ready to take the express route either, which meant I had to eat the cupcake first, cause I certainly couldn't just toss it aside after cryin' over it like that. It was probably the most food I'd had in a week at that point, and it was delicious. Lookin' back, I don't think there's any other place or time Pinkie could've cornered me that would've actually forced me to eat it of my own accord like that. I swear that mare's a lot more clever than we give her credit for sometimes.
So I go down, go back to the house, and actually eat a proper dinner that night. I think it was also the first time I'd slept proper since finishin' the scarecrow as well. But that sleep was cut short by Winona barking up a storm sometime right before dawn. Now, she's a pretty good dog most of the time, but she still goes off on some random birds or possums here and there, and won't stop yappin' until I go chase off whatever she's cornered. I climbed out of bed to go do just that, and quickly realized she was barkin' right at the porch. I went out, and she started leadin' me off away from the house and to the old barn where I'd been workin' on the scarecrow. I hadn't gone back in there in a week or so, and figured maybe I'd left a door open and let in some raccoons or whatnot.
So we get to the barn, and I open the door. The sun's just starting to peak over the hills, so I can see inside pretty well, and the first thing I notice is that the scarecrow I'd spent all that time working on is gone. I'm just about to storm in and start bucking everything in sight in a rage when I see something move off in that massive pile of discarded hay I'd built up. Then I hear whimpering, and I go in slowly. In the hay was that old hat I'd tossed aside, and I can see something is under it and using it like a blanket.
You know what I find under that hat? I find the most precious little filly I've ever seen. She has this bright yellow coat like the first rays of sunshine. Her eyes are shining red and gold, just like Pa's did. Her tail is a rich red like fall leaves, and her long mane is held back by a pink ribbon tied into a huge bow just the way Ma used to wear it.
I'd spent a lot of time crying in that past year, but when you reached your hooves out and I hugged you that first time, the tears were from the joy blooming in my heart after its very long and dark winter.
----
"And when I picked you up," Applejack continued. "You wouldn't let go of that hat you'd been under, and started crying when I tried to take it away. Only way I got you to go up on my back was by puttin' the darn thing on my head where ya could still hold onto the brim behind."
"Wait a minute," Apple Bloom said. "Are you tellin' me that's how ya got yer hat too?"
"Sure am," Applejack said, touching the brim of her famously well-worn hat as she winked.
"An' yer sayin' I'm some kinda scarecrow?" Apple Bloom asked, a bit incredulously. "That somehow came to life from a cupcake?"
"To be honest darlin', I don't really know how it happened," Applejack said taking another sip of cider from the mug between her hooves. "What I do know is that you're everything one could ever want in a sister. You're the best parts from Ma and Pa, from the whole Apple family, and even Sweet Apple Acres itself. You came outta the love they had, and the love I had for them and this family. From the moment I first laid eyes on you, it reminded me I was the luckiest pony in the world to be a part of this family. An' every time I look at you I get to see 'em both again. You're a wish come true, little Bloom, of that I am certain."
Apple Bloom looked up from her cider to see her sister starting to get teary-eyed again. "Ah guess I'm pretty lucky too then," she said, getting up and walking around the table. "To have a brother and sister like ya'll."
The three ponies shared another group hug, and then sat back down.
"But why mud?"
"Ah don't know on that, but I like to think that all us Apples got a bit of the Acres themselves in our blood. Maybe you just got more than the rest a us is all."
"I guess that makes some kinda sense... but that still don't explain Scoots or Sweetie," Apple Bloom said.
"Doesn't explain what about 'em, AB?"
"Well, they bleed funny stuff too, but it ain't mud."
Six mares and three fillies sat around a large table in the main room of the library as a young dragon brought in a tray filled with steaming mugs of hot chocolate. After the drinks were passed around, and the quiet yelps of impatiently scalded tongues subsided, Rarity and Applejack nodded to one another and Applejack stood up.
"Ah know ya'll are all wondering why we asked ya here tonight," she began.
"Yeah AJ, what's up?" Rainbow Dash said, somewhat surprising Applejack that she'd held her tongue even this long. "Secret meetings aren't usually your thing."
"Well, ah... I have to confess somethin' to all ya'll. I've been keepin' a mighty big secret ever since ya'll known me. I know I'm the element of honesty and all, and I like to think I never outright lied to ya about it... and I promise I thought I was doing it for all the best reasons... but now... now..."
Applejack trailed off, leaving an awkward silence that was, oddly enough, broken by Fluttershy. "I'm, umm, I'm sure you were doing the right thing, Applejack."
"Yeah AJ, we all know you wouldn't do something really wrong," Rainbow jumped in again. "So just tell us and get it over with. The curiosity's killing me over here!"
"Thanks girls," Applejack said, then paused for a deep breath. "Well, you all know my sister Apple Bloom and her friends Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, right?"
"Yeah, Scoots and I hang out all the time," Rainbow said, leaning over to hoofbump Scootaloo. "Right, Squirt?"
But Scootaloo was lacking her usual enthusiasm and barely even looked up, leaving Rainbow hanging with her hoof in the air.
"Alright, AJ, now I'm starting to worry," Rainbow said, turning back to the farm pony across the table. "What's going on?"
"Well, Apple Bloom ain't really a normal pony, and she uh, ain't technically my sister. And I only mean technically." Applejack looked at her sister and smiled before continuing. "In every way that matters, she is the best sister a pony could ever ask for. And... well, I guess I did actually kinda ask for her." She chuckled a tad nervously on the last bit. "Anyways, I guess I should start at the beginning, which was back not long after my Ma and Pa died..."
Applejack recounted the story again, leaving out a few of the more sappy details that she'd shared with Apple Bloom the night before. By the time she finished, every pony in the room was completely quiet, mugs of cocoa cooling and untouched.
"And, as I'm being honest here," Applejack continued, "I probably would've left it at that and kept it a family secret even still, but then Bloom told me that she weren't the only one with weird blood, and her friends here were similar. At that point, I weren't sure what to think, but I rushed over to Rarity's first thing this morning and asked her about her sister. We kinda beat around the bush a bit, until I came right out and told her about AB, then, well..."
"I think I should take it from here, Applejack," Rarity said, standing to face the table better. Applejack nodded and sat down.
"This morning Applejack just came rushing into my studio, looking—and forgive me for saying so, darling—quite awful. I asked her 'Whatever is the matter?' She told me she'd been less than honest when I'd talked to her yesterday, and that Apple Bloom had discovered something to upset Sweetie. She then asked me if there was anything wrong with my sister. I of course said no, as I still wasn't quite sure we were talking about what I suspected, and was in such a habit of keeping the secret. So, as Applejack said, we went back and forth a bit, until she directly told me little Apple Bloom had been a scarecrow come to life. At that, I was positively shocked. I had been expecting to hear that Sweetie herself had been found out by her friend. To learn that not only was that true, but that her friend too was in a similar situation was something I was not prepared for in the slightest. I admit I almost retreated to my fainting couch with the revelation, but managed to stay strong as I knew Applejack would not appreciate what she calls my 'theatrics' at this particular moment."
Across the table, Applejack and Rainbow shared a look and both rolled their eyes at this. Catching sight of the subtle movement, Rarity raised her voice slightly to draw attention back to her words.
"Well," she continued. "The eventual outcome was that I shared my own story of how Sweetie became my dear sister. After that, we decided to ask you all here so we could both explain the truth together, and maybe figure out exactly what's going on."
"Well, what did happen?" Twilight said. "I mean, your story about your sister. We heard what happened with AJ and Apple Bloom, but if I'm going to properly study this I need to know how events played out for you and Sweetie as well."
Rarity looked around at her gathered friends and smiled. It already felt good to be sharing the weight of that secret, and besides, it was only fair that she get some time in the spotlight after Applejack had told her own entire story.
"Very well, darlings," she said, ears perking up at having such an attentive audience. "But I'm afraid this tale may not be as intriguing as Applejack's. It all began some years ago, back when I..."
"You don't mind if I take notes, do you?" Twilight interrupted, already floating a piece of parchment, quill, and inkwell to the table in front of her.
"Why of course not, Twilight," Rarity said, smiling at the still predictably bookish alicorn. "I would expect nothing less." She then summoned her best theatrical airs and launched into the story.
----
It all began some years ago, back when I was just a tiny filly. You all have, of course, met my parents, and while I do love them dearly, you know they aren't exactly as... well, as fabulous as one might expect parents of mine to be. My family didn't have many relatives around either, but there was one. My grandfather.
He was the most amazing unicorn, and he worked as a clockmaker in Canterlot. He also traveled quite extensively over all Equestria as well. Every time he came to visit he always brought me some exquisite little gift or bauble from the most magnificent places: a zebra-made medicine box carved from dark jungle ironwood, a hoof mirror lined with emeralds pulled from the headwaters of the mighty Ponyzon river, or a beautiful basket, hoof-woven by the llamas of Dalai. But it wasn't just the gifts that made him so special to me. It was the time we spent together.
When I was really little, I don't remember too much, other than he'd always tuck me in each night whenever he was visiting. As I grew a bit older, I remember he'd tell me stories of the places he'd been and the things he'd seen. All of them sounded so amazing compared to the mundane life of Ponyville, and I was always begging for another story, even when it was way past my bedtime. He'd always oblige, and make me promise not to tell my mother about it.
One year, when I was old enough, my parents asked if I wanted to go spend the summer with my grandfather in Canterlot. As you might imagine, I simply leapt at the chance. We had, of course, visited as a family a few times, and I had become enamored with the fabulous city the moment I'd first laid eyes on it. A chance to spend an entire summer amidst the sophisticated and fashionable ponies of the capital was more than I could've hoped for.
That entire summer was a dream come true for me. Grandfather took me nearly everywhere I asked to go. We saw fantastic plays, had box seats to the most grand operas, ate at exquisite restaurants, and took leisurely strolls down all the streets of fashion and culture in the city. My young eyes were as wide as could be when I looked through those shop windows at the fashions displayed within, as well as the rich and powerful ponies wearing them.
One evening, Grandfather somehow managed to acquire two tickets to an exclusive fashion show. It's strange, for the life of me I can't remember a single one of the designers nor any of the fashions on display at the show in the slightest, yet I have no trouble recalling every minute detail of Grandfather's face when he surprised me with the tickets.
Now, while I certainly had the time of my life that summer, one thing I had not counted on was just how homesick I might be. The first night there, after Grandfather had tucked me in and gone to bed, I was laying in a strange room, with all the odd and frightening noises of the city and, as many young fillies do, I started to see monsters in every shadow and corner. I huddled under the covers and started sobbing, wishing I was home in my familiar room and the quiet of Ponyville instead. Grandfather heard me crying though, and came in to comfort me. After I told him how I thought there might be something in the closet or under the bed, he said he understood perfectly. Then he got up, lit up his horn, and with the most wonderful sense of theater, made a grand show of checking the closet for monsters, looking under the bed for trolls, and even went so far as to stick his head deep inside each drawer in the dresser... just in case there were bats. When he finally finished, he turned to me with a flourish, saluted, and declared the room monster-free and safe for little fillies to sleep in. His antics had been enough to distract me from all my fears, and with that I was finally able to get to sleep.
Over the summer, the monster checking became a ritual every night, and while I don't think I was actually that scared after the first few days, it still made me feel warm inside that he would be so thorough every time. Eventually, it turned into a sort of game between us. By the end of the summer, the two of us had an elaborate script, where I was the princess, and he was my faithful guard. I'd tell him in my best royal voice, "Secure the perimeter, Captain!" and after his exhaustive—and increasingly comical—search, he'd then salute and tell me "These quarters are secure your highness, you may now retire." I'd then return the salute and dismiss him—assuming he hadn't made me give in and start laughing by that point.
When the summer came to a close I was simply devastated. I simply adored life in Canterlot, and the love for sophistication and culture which Grandfather and I shared. I had to return to Ponyville though, as the school season was about to start. Grandfather assured me he'd come to visit before too long though. I asked him if I could come stay with him next summer, sure that he'd say yes, so I was shocked when he only said "We'll see."
What I didn't know at the time was that he was dying. The doctors had told him he only had a few months left to live, and after telling my parents the news, had asked if he could spend his last summer with me in the city. They'd all agreed to withhold the bad news from me until afterwards, so I could fully enjoy the time with him.
When I next saw Grandfather, it was about a month into the school year. I'd only been away from Canterlot, and him, for a few weeks, yet he looked so much different. His cheeks were shallow, his ribs were showing, and there were bags under his eyes that I'd never seen before, even when we'd stayed up all night at some gala as he taught me to dance. I knew right away something was amiss, but didn't know what until he sat down in my room and explained it to me.
At first, I simply refused to hear it. Grandfather couldn't die, he'd always been there. That would be like a mountain disappearing, or the ocean drying up. But as we sat there, the truth of his words sunk in and I finally broke down in tears. He held me and rocked me back and forth as I cried. Between my sobs, I told him how much I loved all the things we'd seen and done, how much I loved this trinket he'd bought me, or that time he'd taken me to some show or another. For his part, he told me how the summer had been the best time of his life too, and how wonderful it was to spend it with such an amazing little filly.
After some time, when I had more or less cried myself out, I leaned back and asked him, "But when you're gone, who's going to protect me from the monsters?"
He smiled down at me and said, "You think I would forget something as important as that?" Then his horn lit up and pulled something out of his bag in the corner.
"I've brought you an even better guardian," he said, placing the thing on the floor in front of us.
What he'd brought turned out to be a clockwork doll he'd made. It was large for a doll, only a bit smaller than I was at the time. And, as I'm sure you've guessed, it was a white unicorn with a purple and pink mane.
"Let me show you," he said, and turned out the lights. When he did, the thing started to move. Its horn lit up with a faint glow, and then it walked to all the dark corners of the room and closet. At each, its head swiveled left and right, the light from its horn illuminating each shadowy area before moving on to the next. Once it'd swept the entire room, it marched back to the center of the floor, turned to me, and saluted.
I never did figure out how much of that doll was magical and how much was technological. Grandfather's skill at both was sufficiently advanced that the two were indistinguishable. What I do know was that it was the most amazing gift he'd ever given me. My parents later told me he'd spent pretty much the entire time since I'd left Canterlot working on it, determined to finish it before he grew too weak, and that it was the only reason he hadn't come to visit sooner.
After I told him how it was "the most wonderful, fabulous, best... thing... ever!" I was still confused by one oddity.
"But Grandfather," I asked. "Why does it look like a little filly instead of like you?"
I will never forget his reply, nor the love in his eyes when he gave it.
"Because, my dearest Rarity, an old stallion like me might be able to fight, and perhaps even defeat, a few shadows here and there... but a young filly... Oh, now that is something truly powerful. You see, a young filly like you can do anything she sets her mind to. She has her entire life ahead of her, and she has the ability to conquer absolutely everything this great big world might try to put in her way."
My grandfather died a couple of months after that. Most of his time was sadly spent in the hospital, and while we did go to visit, I still had to attend school, and my parents of course had their jobs. The funeral was one of the saddest times in my young life, but I got through it, and every night as I went to bed, that little guardian filly he'd given me dutifully paroled my room and chased away the darkness.
Later, when I first got my cutie mark, I assumed all my problems were behind me. I'd found my destiny, and I just knew I was heading straight for the top of the fashion world. As I grew up, fame and fortune continued to elude me however. By the time I graduated, I was surprised, then later affronted, that all the fashion and design houses I'd sent my portfolios to had turned me down. "Lack of practical experience" was what the kinder replies said. The less kind ones... well, you can imagine how cruel some fashionistas might be.
Needless to say, I found myself less than enthused when the only job I could find was as a seamstress at the local cleaners. Why, it was nothing more than minor alterations and the occasional repair. It was at least enough to let me move out on my own though, and I was ever so determined to be independent.
As I worked that dreary job in the back with all the noisy machines, I grew more and more depressed. It was simply awful. It didn't help things that most of the friends I had from school had moved away, following their own destinies to jobs or further schooling in great cities like Manehatten or Fillydelphia, while I was stuck here in Ponyville replacing lost buttons.
By no means can I claim that my hardships were anywhere near what Applejack may have experienced, but regardless, I still found myself in quite a state of depression. Between the thankless job and my unfortunate lack of social life, I entered a bit of a downward spiral. I had thought the world was to be my stage, but discovered I wasn't even granted an audition.
The one thing that never changed though, was that every night when I shut off the lights, that little guardian would make its rounds and salute me, even though I'd long since lost my fear of the dark. It had become such a consistent thing over the years that I hardly even gave it a thought by that point, no more so than one would think about the toaster popping up toast each morning. But one day it was all just too much. A customer had yelled at me for letting out his coat too much—even though the buttons were still about to pop due to his rather ample physique—and somehow that was the final straw.
I went home and just sulked. I tried making some tea to cheer myself up, but it didn't help. I couldn't concentrate enough to read, and I was so fed up with the job that I couldn't bear the thought of looking at one more needle or piece of thread. Giving up, I went to bed early, and when I shut off the lights and the little filly started marching, I broke down in tears. I remembered what Grandfather had said, how a young filly like me could handle anything. But this wasn't some design challenge, some project to complete, or even some wrong to be righted. This was just life, and I was simply failing at it. What was the point of it all? Nothing I was doing made any difference in the world. Nopony would even notice if I disappeared tomorrow. I wasn't important enough to matter to anypony or anything.
The next day I skipped work entirely, and didn't even send a note. I merely stayed at home and sulked in a completely undignified sort of way. I did the same the next day as well, and the day after that. Why, I didn't even comb my mane for three days I was so depressed, can you believe that? All I could think of was how much promise and joy I'd seen in the world during that one magical summer in Canterlot with Grandfather, and how utterly far away and unreachable that now seemed. Then the doorbell rang.
At first, I merely ignored it. I imagined it was probably somepony from work, wondering why I'd missed my shifts, and I was in absolutely no condition to want to explain myself. But then it rang again. And again. I still ignored it. Then it played the chorus from Neightoven's Ode to Joy, which, until then, I would've sworn was impossible for a single hoof-sized brass bell on a pull string.
It was, as I am sure many of you have surmised, Pinkie Pie. Like Applejack, I didn't know her well at the time, so it was rather surprising to find this strange pink mare on my doorstep offering me a cupcake. I can only imagine how absolutely dreadful my mane must've looked by that point, but at the time it didn't even occur to me. I remember being confused as to why exactly she was there, but in my depressed state, I believe I would've gone along with pretty much anything at that point. So, like Applejack, when she insisted I make a wish, I merely mumbled something quick and generic to see her gone, but I'm quite sure now my heart was wishing for something very strongly. I don't think I'd ever put it in words at the time, but now I think I'd say my wish was something along the lines of "to have something worth living for." By that, I certainly don't mean to imply that I was suicidal or anything of the sort, merely that I wanted a purpose in life, some raison d'être.
Pinkie left me standing in the doorway with the cupcake after I'd made my wish, so I took it into the kitchen. I was rather hungry, and in my depression, had rather little concern for what it might add to my figure. It was, like all of Pinkie's baking, absolutely delicious. I stayed downstairs for the rest of the day, and actually found enough focus to read a bit and distract myself some.
When I finally retired for the night, I went to my room and shut off the lights by rote as I entered, expecting the glow from the clockwork filly to light my way to bed. When the familiar blue glow failed to appear, I switched the lights back on and was startled to see a very real, very alive, and somehow very familiar filly curled up and sleeping on the middle of the bed.
Now, I confess I did not act nearly as instinctively as it seems Applejack did. I had absolutely no idea what to make of the situation at first. I thought perhaps this filly has fled into my apartment while escaping bullies at school or some such, even though she looked a bit young for school. As I stared at her, I began to see the clear resemblance to the automaton Grandfather had given me, and all my rational explanations started to fade. I did make a quick survey of the room however, just in case the clockwork had been misplaced or moved by this new intruder. My search came up empty of course, so I turned back to the foal on the bed. As I did so, she woke up, opened her eyes, and smiled the sweetest smile I've ever seen.
----
"It wasn't an immediate epiphany," Rarity concluded. "But in hindsight, I feel it's pretty clear. That little clockwork had watched over me for years after Grandfather died, but I no longer needed something to watch over me, instead, it was my turn to be the watcher. I needed the responsibility and the sense of purpose that comes from protecting something precious. Sweetie Belle was exactly that, in the form of a little sister I'd never had until that moment."
With that, Rarity turned to her little sister and gave her a big hug before carefully wiping the tears from her eyes.
"That was a lovely story, Rares," Applejack said, noticing that there wasn't a dry eye in the room, hers included. "But what I wanna know is what exactly was in those cupcakes."
For the past several minutes Pinkie had been bouncing up and down in the far corner of the room rather faster than physics would normally allow. Upon mention of the cupcakes though, the frequency somehow sped up even further, approximating that of a jackhammer.
"Sorry everypony," Applejack said, "I made her Pinkie Promise not to talk until I said so, as I was afraid we'd never get get through this before dawn otherwise." Applejack turned to the pink blur. "Okay Pinkie, you can talk now. Where exactly did those cupcakes come from?"
Pinkie took a deeper breath than any pony thought possible... and then kept breathing in until candles all the way in the kitchen were starting to go out. Then she smiled and said:
"So I got three wishes from Genie and wasn't sure what to do with them so I kept them in the pantry until just the right moment and then one day I finally had an ear and two tail twitches at the same time and I knew I had to bake some cupcakes so I did and I chose pink because it's my favorite color even though the cake was blueberry which would normally be blue but you can make pink blueberry and in fact you can make pink just-about-any-flavor if you really want because the color doesn't actually change the flavor though some ponies find it weird if they're eating blue lemon cake but these weren't lemon they were really good pink blueberry cupcakes and I put the wishes in all three and left them on the window to cool and normally I wouldn't do that because everypony knows that's how you get ants but that's also how you get aunts and since my left front hoof kept sproinging every time I thought about pickles I knew I had to put them on the window then when I came back there were now only two just like I expected and then my tail started twitching again and it was like right right left poing left so I knew I had to take a cupcake to a pony on top of a barn which seemed really silly even to me because why would a pony be on top of a barn instead of in one but the tail is never wrong so I went and took the cupcake to Applejack and told her to make a wish because you can't have a wish in a cake and not have somepony make a wish on it and then she wished I would leave and I did even though I knew that wasn't really what she wished for and on the way back home my tail went all poing poing right left poing and so of course I had to take a cupcake to a doorbell symphony but when I got there I found the doorbell but no symphony so I had to make one myself and it took a few tries but then I got it or at least I think I got it and it sure sounded like a symphony to me or at least part of one and then Rarity answered the door and her mane was all messy which is funny because Rarity's mane is never messy except that time she got all in the mud in that race or maybe when we were trying to get that dragon to leave the mountain but it didn't matter that her mane was funny and so I gave her the cupcake and then she made a wish that wasn't really her real wish and then I went home and had a party for my tail because it had finally stopped twitching."
The sudden silence was deafening, the assembled ponies feeling as though they'd just entered the calm eye of a verbal hurricane. Twilight looked down and found that her enchanted note-taking quill had gone off the end of the parchment, onto the table, off the table, and was halfway to the kitchen still scribbling notes across the floor.
Applejack shook her head to clear her thoughts. "Now back up just a minute here," she said. "You're tellin' me ya got three wishes from a genie?"
"Not a genie, silly," Pinkie replied. "I got them from my friend Genie. He's a unicorn baker and infernomancer over in Fillydelphia."
"And where do ya suppose he got them from?" Applejack said.
"From a genie of course! That's like the only place to get wishes in a three-pack, and he's like the best infernomancer there is. You should see him work! He puts all these elaborate runes on the floor of a dark basement and summons up these humongous fire creatures then gives them what for. He's all 'I want three wishes' And they're all like '500 bits' and he's like 'No way, I'll give you 250' and then they go 'Okay, fine, but only if you throw in another one of those banana cream pies. My wife loves those and...'"
"Enough, Pinkie!" Applejack interrupted, "We're gettin' off topic."
"Okie dokie loki!" Pinkie said, and then sat quietly smiling.
"Wait a minute," Twilight said. "This Genie friend of yours... His name isn't actually Generous Melody, is it?"
"Oh wow! You know Genie too?" Pinkie replied.
"He was one of the examiners when I was trying to get into school."
Pinkie looked at Twilight and just tilted her head.
"You know," Twilight continued. "The day I got my cutie mark? When I turned my parents into plants, levitated all the teachers, and turned Spike into a fifty foot tall, roof destroying dragon?"
"Oh, that day!" Pinkie said, leaving Twilight a bit unsure if she was being sarcastic or sincere.
"Well... apparently after that day, he had a bit of a breakdown. Celestia later told me he'd stormed in to give his resignation, saying he felt he'd be safer working with fire elementals from the nether realms than with the sorts of young fillies Celestia obviously wanted at the school."
"Wait, let me get this straight," Rainbow Dash said. "On your first day of school, you actually scared a teacher so bad, that he ran halfway across Equestria to get away from you?"
Twilight, still feeling pangs of guilt, even though the incident had been years ago, and well beyond her conscious control, could only sigh, "Yeah, I guess I did."
"Oh Twi, that is so awesome!" Rainbow said, slapping Twilight on the shoulder. "Hilarious and awesome! Do you have any idea how many of my teachers I would've loved to do that to?"
"Well, I still don't feel great about it."
"Oh lighten up, Twi. Besides, if you hadn't done that, Pinkie never would've had wishes to give out, and three awesome fillies wouldn't be here!"
Twilight smiled at that. "I guess you're right. It all worked out in the end."
"Right," Rainbow Dash said, turning back to Pinkie. "I've got a question. If you got three wishes from a genie..."
"Not a genie..." "Argh, right... fine. You had three wishes from your friend Genie... But why didn't you make a wish yourself?"
Pinkie thought about this for a moment, then looked at Dash with her head tilted in genuine confusion. "I don't understand."
"Why didn't you use one of the wishes to get what you wanted instead of giving them away."
"But why would I use a wish to wish I could do what I was already doing with the wishes?"
"Wait," Dash said, processing that for a moment. "You're telling me the only thing you would've wished for was to give away the wishes?"
"Of course, Dashie. Can you think of a better way to use three wishes to make other ponies happy?"
Rainbow Dash was a bit surprised at that. It made sense, at least in a Pinkie Pie sort of way, and while she knew her friend was always wanting everypony to smile, she'd never quite realized it went so deep as to completely negate even the thought of using a wish for her own self. Still though, Rainbow thought she saw one flaw in the logic.
"Why not wish for unlimited wishes?" She asked the still smiling Pinkie. "Then you could give lots away."
"Oh Dashie, you're so silly. Everypony knows you can't wish for more wishes."
"Why not?"
"Because wishes are already unlimited."
"But you said you only got three!"
"Exactly! That's why I had to give them away!"
Rainbow Dash facehooved, sighed, and turned to the resident magical expert. "Twilight," she said. "Maybe you can make some sense out of this?"
Twilight looked up from her notes, having previously acquired more parchment and set the quill to repeat what'd previously been transcribed on the table and floor. "What?" She said, hearing her name. Then, as her brain replayed the last few seconds of the conversation, continued. "Oh, right, of course."
"So Pinkie," Twilight began. "Let me see if we can sort out a few more things."
"Sure thingy, Twilight!"
"You said you put the wishes into cupcakes?"
"Yep yep!"
"And how, exactly, did you do that?"
"That's like cake baking 101. I mean, birthday cakes are only the number one most popular cake ever! And it wouldn't be a birthday cake without a wish!"
"Oooh-kay..." Twilight said, mentally squashing all the questions on that deep down next to the ones concerning "Pinkie Sense" before looking back at her notes to formulate the next question in a hopefully more Pinkie-proof way.
Scootaloo took that moment to speak up. "This is great and all," she said, her voice high and quavering at the edge of tears. "Pinkie and her magic cupcakes, and AJ and Rarity getting magic little sisters! But it still doesn't explain about me!"
Twilight turned to the orange little filly and put a comforting wing around her. "Oh Scootaloo, I'm sorry. We didn't mean to ignore you."
The filly leaned into the embrace and sniffled before looking up. "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell... it's just... just, I asked my parents if I was adopted or something, and they got this funny look in their eyes, but..."
Sweetie Belle came around the table to comfort her friend, "What'd they say, Scoots?"
"Well, they said 'No, of course not' and wanted to know why I'd think that. I didn't tell 'em about what we found in the clubhouse with the blood and stuff, just said it was because of how I can't fly and they can. So they just told me I'd get there one day and all that like they always do. But I heard them talking late last night about how they'd 'found' me, and they sounded just as confused about where I came from as I am."
Twilight looked down at Scootaloo with serious concern on her face. "So your parents don't know you're here, or any of what's going on with you and your friends?"
"No," Scootaloo admitted, hanging her head. "I just told them I was heading to go play with my friends in town like I always do."
Twilight sighed, as she could easily imagine how badly Scootaloo's parents might react if they found out about all of this and their daughter's involvement without their knowledge or consent. Just as she was about to explain her concerns and tell the filly that she had to go home, her eyes met those of Applejack across the table. The look on the farm pony's face said she was thinking the same thing. It was Applejack who spoke up first though.
"Ah know what yer thinkin', Twi, but it ain't gonna make no difference to send her away now. In for a bit, in for bushel, and we're quite a few bits in already."
"What?" Scootaloo said, looking up. "You can't! I have to know what's wrong with me, and my parents aren't going to tell me even if they did know!"
"Whoa, slow down there, sugarcube," Applejack said. "As I was just sayin', there's no point in doing that now, right Twilight?"
"I suppose I do see your point, AJ," Twilight admitted, then looked down at the filly under her wing. "You can stay. With that said however, I don't think we've actually figured out anything about your history specifically. I can only assume it has to do with that third cupcake that went missing, but I don't think there's much chance we'll find somepony that knows what happened to it."
"Uhh... actually," Rainbow Dash said, rubbing the back of her head with a forehoof in embarrassment. "I kinda sorta might know where it went."
Twilight, Rarity, and Applejack all got "that look" in their eye, turned as one to the prismatic pegasus, and with a sigh said, "Rainbow Dash..."
"Look guys, it wasn't as if I knew it was magic or anything," Dash said, looking around nervously for approval. Getting only silence in response, she decided to just plow ahead with her story.
Well, so this was a ways back, right, when me and Flutters were still living up in Cloudsdale. I'd been out practicing as usual, and was working on high-speed terrain following just outside of Ponyville. As I was dodging through trees and skimming over rivers, I started to get pretty hungry. You do not want to be going as fast as I do and hit a tree, so I can't afford to be distracted by hunger.
Anyway, not too long before then, I'd found these awesome apple trees out on the edge of town and I'd often stop by there and borrow a couple of apples for a snack. And yeah, I probably owe AJ a few crates of apples, now that I think about it. At the time though... Well, I won't say I didn't know any better, but who was gonna miss a couple of apples out of a whole orchard, right?
So yeah, I zoomed through all the rows of trees across the farm and snagged a few apples to snack on, then set up shop in a tree for a nap. When I woke up, it was late afternoon and I knew I had to be back in Cloudsdale for this evening class I was taking. And before you say anything, yes, I was taking classes. Even somepony as awesome as me can't join the weather team without knowing at least a little bit of meteorology and stuff.
Anyway... I was feeling pretty groggy after my nap, so I took the scenic route past the edge of Ponyville rather than zooming straight back to Cloudsdale. On the way I smelled, like, the most awesome thing ever. I slowed down and tracked it to these cupcakes sitting out on a window ledge. It was sticking out the back of this building in town, and so I pulled into a hover and went down to check it out. Turns out, it was a bakery—that old one before the Cakes remodeled— and since I had a few bits to spare, I thought I'd get something, and the sugar rush could help keep me awake during class. Besides, my stomach wouldn't let me pass up a smell that good. I set down and walked around to the front of the place, ready to go in, but the sign on the door said "Be back later." I was all set to leave, but right as I dusted off, the breeze shifted and the smell of those cupcakes shot directly into my brain. "It's a bakery," I thought. "Who's going to miss one cupcake?"
Now, I realize I should've left a couple bits to pay for it or something, but I didn't think of that at the time. Instead, I just snatched one and took off. Not wanting anypony to see my free snack, I shot straight for Cloudsdale, figuring I could eat in peace once I set down on campus.
From the angle I came in at, the first thing I hit in Cloudsdale was the park on the edge of campus. It's kinda shared with the town, so there're swing sets and stuff for foals as well as a lot of benches and other grown-up park stuff too. It looked as good a place as any to eat a cupcake, so I landed and sat down on a bench near the swings. I was just about to take a big bite when I saw Fluttershy. She was over in the area usually meant for foals, and making something in the cloudbox. Oh right... so that's kinda like a sandbox, but for pegasi. It's filled with specially sifted cloudstuff that holds a shape way better than most normal clouds. That makes it easier for foals to sculpt and build things with it.
I was about to shout to her, but then I saw that she was looking sad. Well, even more sad than usual. You guys didn't know Flutters back then, but she had it pretty rough from the other foals when we were little, and, well... It got better after she got her cutie mark, but still... With her shyness, you can imagine she wasn't exactly miss popular in college either. Anyway, point is, she was looking even more sad than she usually did in those days. I may not have been the most honest pony back then, but I like to think I was still the most loyal. I couldn't just leave her like that, and I did have a cupcake in my hoof, so I thought super quickly and realized I needed a unicorn.
I saw a visiting professor walking across the far end of the park, so I zoomed over to him and asked him to relight the candle on the cupcake for me. He looked at me like I was a mad mare for a second, but then just shrugged and a spark leapt from his horn to the candle. I zoomed back towards Fluttershy, and... yeah, so there's like one thing not awesome about being so fast. Anyway, he was nice enough to light it a second time as well, and then I walked carefully back across the field to Fluttershy.
"Hey Flutters, want a cupcake?" I said.
She jumped and screamed. Well, quietly sorta kinda screamed. You know how she is. I guess I'd come up directly behind her, and with how awesomely careful I was being, I hadn't made any noise at all, so she hadn't realized I was right there until I said something.
"Here," I said, shoving the cupcake toward her face. "Make a wish!"
She said that it wasn't her birthday or anything, but I was all "When you know a pony as awesome as me, you don't have to wait for your birthday!"
Yeah, I know, that's pretty cheesy, but it's the thought that counts, right? Anyway, she blew out the candle and pretty much wolfed down the whole cupcake before I knew it. We talked for a couple minutes and she seemed to cheer up, which made me feel better too, even though I didn't get any of the cupcake. Then I realized I was late for class, so I told her bye and took off. And that's pretty much it.
----
"What do you mean, that's it?" Scootaloo said, flabbergasted. "That still doesn't explain anything about me!"
"Umm..." interjected Fluttershy. "Maybe I should tell my part now. If you, umm, if you all want to hear it."
"Of course we want to hear it!" Scootaloo shouted as she put both her front hooves on the table, leaning as far as possible toward Fluttershy. The filly's eyes were wide with determination, even though her voice sounded like it was about to give in to more sobs at any moment. "I've got to know what happened!"
Fluttershy's ears laid down and her pupils contracted as the obviously stressed little pegasus invaded her personal space. She quickly regained her composure though, and started recounting things from her angle.
----
Well, umm... you see... it was like Dashie said. I was having a really rough day. My history professor had told me she was going to have to fail me since I'd been absent too many times. I tried to tell her that I'd never missed a class, and that maybe I may have been too quiet during roll call, what with so many other ponies around, so she probably didn't hear me. She told me that was my own fault then, and went back to her paperwork. I wanted to argue, but I couldn't bring myself to actually say anything. She looked up and wanted to know if there was anything else, and... I just mumbled "thank you" and backed out of her office. Inside, it made me so angry. I'd thanked her when she was failing me unfairly and even being rude about it. I hated myself for being so timid, but still I just hung my head and walked away.
After that, I'd been late to remedial flight training, and it didn't go very well either. The coach yelled at me in front of everypony as soon I flew into the gym, and then that made all of them look right at me. I couldn't stand them staring like that so I looked away, but then I couldn't see where I was landing and ended up tripping over my own hooves and falling over. Even in a class full of bad fliers, they still all laughed at me. Then even the coach, asking why I was late, called me "Miss Cluttershy" and I just couldn't take it anymore. I burst into tears and went galloping out of the gym. I didn't care if I failed that class too at that point, I just had to get away from everypony looking down at me, so I ran to the biggest open space I could find, which was the park.
It was the middle of the day, so there weren't any foals around, but there were college students and faculty using the trotting paths and such. I ended up in the playground because it was the farthest I could get from everypony. I wasn't in any mood to swing, so I just sat down in the cloudbox, crying softly to myself.
After a while, I started tracing my hoof around in the cloudstuff, making little repeating patterns, watching it fall off my hoof when I held up a clump, and just doing anything to take my mind off all the mean ponies. I'm not sure exactly what led me to start building something, but I think it was mostly just something to occupy my hooves and mind. Before I knew it though, I'd formed a crude little cloud pony. I started talking to it, or really to myself I guess. I told it about the things that always went wrong for me, and how I hated being so timid, and a bad flier. The interesting thing was that it... well, it umm, kind of started to help me feel a bit better.
As I continued putting details on it, I started thinking how nice it would be to have a real friend that I could talk to, one who was like me. So as I modeled the cloud pony more, I started adding details. I decided she should be a pegasus, like me. She'd be lonely too, feeling outcast like I was. I gave her really small wings as well, because she'd be bad at flying like me. I thought that if I had someone just like me, they'd really understand all the problems I had, and I was making an imaginary friend to match. Then Rainbow Dash snuck up behind me and I nearly jumped out of my skin!
When I finally caught my breath, she was standing there beside the cloudbox, looking a bit embarrassed, and holding out a cupcake in one hoof. It was pink, covered in frosting, and had a single, lit candle on it. Then Dash told me to make a wish. I was really confused, as I had no idea why she'd give me a cupcake like that. I thought maybe she thought it was my birthday, and tried to apologize if I'd told her the wrong date. That's when she said, "When you know a pony as awesome as me, you don't have to wait for your birthday!"
I, umm... I know you think it sounded cheesy Dashie, but it really touched me when you said that, though it took a moment for it to sink in. I almost just blew out the candle right away, as I didn't want to disappoint some pony being nice to me, and after everything I'd been thinking for the past few hours there in the park, I had a wish pretty much ready to go too. But then my thoughts finally caught up to my ears and I really heard what Dash had just told me. I didn't need some new, imaginary friend. I already had friends, and knew ponies who cared about me, including one who really was awesome enough to bring me a cupcake, even when it wasn't my birthday.
When I thought about it like that, I felt guilty for being so self-indulgent. I knew lots of ponies had it so much worse than me. My thoughts went to a conversation I had with my mom a few weeks before that when I'd visited home. We'd been up late talking over tea, and she was telling me how awful she felt for one of her coworkers. The poor mare and her husband had been expecting a foal for months, and they'd both been so excited. Mom told me how she'd go on and on about the nursery they were adding, and about names she was thinking of. Then, about a week before Mom and I were talking... well, oh it makes me cry again now just thinking about it, but she'd had a miscarriage. To make it worse, the, umm... the doctors told her she'd probably not be able to have another foal again either. Mom was crying as she told me this, and of course I started crying too. It was just so sad.
So there I was, a couple of weeks later, feeling sad for myself just because I might fail a class or tripped in front of a couple of ponies who laughed at me. How could I possibly even think of wishing something for myself when my life was so good compared to so many others? Tears started to form in my eyes as I held that cupcake, and Dash was looking impatient, so I took a deep breath to blow out the candle. Like the others I'm not sure exactly what I wished for, I just know that in that moment, I just wanted that mare and her husband... that broken family... I wanted them to be happy.
----
"Wow," Rainbow said. "You never told me all that before. When I asked you what was wrong that day, you only told me about the teacher trying to fail you, and I told you I'd help you sort it out."
"Well, I ummm..." Fluttershy started to answer.
"And you wolfed down that cupcake in like two seconds, what was that about?"
Fluttershy blushed a bit, "I think, that umm, with all the moping, I may have skipped lunch that day."
"Classic!" Dash said, leaning back and laughing, causing Fluttershy to blush even more.
As she calmed down, Pinkie suddenly became the center of attention. "I knew it!" the pink mare proclaimed, one hoof high in the air, grinning. "I told you, I told you, I told you, I told you, I told you, I told you!" she said, dancing around on her hind legs, pointing at each of the other ponies in turn.
"Told us what?" Twilight asked.
"That's how you get aunts!"
"Do what now?" Applejack said, as confused as the rest.
"I told you, you never leave baked goods on a window sill, because that's how you get ants, and that's how you get aunts!"
"I'm still not followin' here, sugarcube."
"Scootaloo's mom's sister is an aunt, and Scootaloo doesn't have any brothers or sisters, so her mom's sister wasn't an aunt before, but now she is, because Fluttershy made a wish on a cupcake that Rainbow Dash stole because I left it on a window sill because..." Pinkie finished her proclamation on two knees in the center of the table, forehooves raised to the sky—or rather ceiling—and shouting quite loudly, "That's how you get aunts!"
Several seconds of silence followed, wherein Pinkie nonchalantly returned to her seat, apparently quite satisfied that she'd made her point.
"Well," Twilight spoke up. "I think that actually all makes sense... in a Pinkie sort of way." Most of the ponies in the room chuckled slightly at that, including Pinkie, who never passed up a chance to laugh, even at herself. There was one pony that didn't though.
The sniffling sounds coming from the filly beside her made Twilight turn and look down at Scootaloo. The pegasus had tears in her eyes and was trying to wipe them away with an already soaked fetlock.
"What's wrong, Scootaloo?" Twilight said, once again putting her wing around the filly to comfort her. Scootaloo batted it away and slid herself away from Twilight.
"That," she said, pointing at Twilight's wing. "That's what's wrong!"
"Whatever do you mean, darling?" Rarity said, now the closest pony to the filly.
"I... I can't fly," the filly choked out between sobs, then pointed an accusing hoof at Fluttershy. "I can't fly because she wanted a friend that was bad at flying!"
Fluttershy was taken aback by the accusation, the possible truth of it knifing straight to her heart. "I... I never meant..." Fluttershy stammered out.
"But you said it!" Scootaloo yelled at Fluttershy. "You said you gave me small wings so I'd be bad at flying! Just so you could feel better about yourself! Now look at me!"
At that, the orange filly reached back and pulled a wing out to full extension with her mouth, demonstrating how stunted it was, then let it slip from her teeth. "I hope you're happy!"
By then, Fluttershy was also in tears. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I... I never meant it like that at all."
Rarity stood up and spoke loudly. "Of course you didn't, dear! No pony is blaming you for anything."
She then turned to Scootaloo, just as the filly was about to insist that, yes, she was blaming Fluttershy.
"Come here, my dear," she said softly, and pulled the filly into a long hug. "Now," she continued, placing her own face level with Scootaloo. "Whatever gave you the idea that small wings would keep you from flying?"
Scootaloo looked confused, but the confusion was better than tears, so she took the bait and explained how all the foals at school had bigger wings, and could already fly.
"Oh darling, it's not just about wing size," Rarity said.
"But, what about..."
"Shhh... Just listen for a minute, let me explain. Now, who do you think is the better flier here, Rainbow Dash, or Fluttershy?"
"Ummm..." Scootaloo thought this had to be some sort of trick question, but answered anyway. "Well, Rainbow Dash. Duh!"
"I see..." Rarity said, cryptically. "And how about between Twilight and Rainbow Dash?"
Scootaloo actually snickered. She'd seen the newly ascended alicorn fall on her face several times as Dash had been giving her flight lessons. "Dash, of course."
"Interesting..." Rarity said, walking over to a set of drawers in the corner of the room. "Twilight, may I?"
The aforementioned alicorn thought she knew where Rarity might be going with this, and nodded. With that, Rarity levitated a rolled strip of cloth out and walked over to Twilight. By then, most of the other ponies in the room were nearly as confused as Scootaloo.
"Now dear," Rarity said, addressing Twilight. "If you'd be so kind?"
Twilight smiled and stood up, before stretching out her wings to full extension. Rarity unrolled the strip, revealing it to be a tape measure, and took measurements of both the overall span, as well as the length of each wing, making small ticks on the tape to record things. She, of course, already knew these measurements quite well, as she'd tailored several new dresses for Twilight's coronation. This show was merely for the benefit of the now wide-eyed pegasus filly. With the measurements complete, Twilight folded her wings and sat back at the table.
"Fluttershy, would you please step over here for a moment?"
The yellow pegasus demurely trotted around the table and spread her wings as well, though she was afraid to look Scootaloo in the eye, the accusations the filly had leveled still burning fresh in her mind.
"Thank you, dear," Rarity said, finishing her measurements and turning to Scootaloo. "If you look here, you can see that Fluttershy's wings are only an inch or so shorter than Twilight's. As Twilight's an alicorn though, that's actually quite impressive. Still though, I think we can all agree that they are both... well, no offense dearies, but less-than-stellar fliers, yes?"
Rarity knew she was probably hurting Fluttershy's feelings slightly with that remark, but it was for the greater good, and she'd make it up to her later.
"Ha, I know I certainly am!" Twilight said.
Rarity smiled, glad to see Twilight taking the attention off the shy pegasus.
"And of course," Rarity continued. "We all know Rainbow Dash is at least—I believe it's 'twenty percent cooler'—correct?"
Applejack snickered at the subtle jab, but it went right over Scootaloo's head, so she just responded, "Yeah, at least twenty percent cooler!"
"So then, I imagine we should expect her wings to be at least twenty percent larger, yes?"
Scootaloo, to her credit, was starting to catch on to where this might be going. Her own stubbornness—and unwavering adoration of Dash—won out though, and she wasn't going to back down this far in.
"Umm, sure," the filly said, then amended. "If you, umm... also take like weight and stuff into account."
Rarity laughed, actually pleased to see the filly thinking a bit more critically now. Well, that and a certain mental image that, by the fearful look in her eye, Twilight had as well. Rarity realized she probably could make it happen too. None of the winged ponies in the room would dare say no while she was trying to help a scared filly, but... no. Pranks like that really belonged more to Pinkie, and this wasn't the time anyway.
"Don't worry, girls," she said, looking especially at Twilight. "I'm not going to put you all up on scales!" The relief on Twilight's face was quite evident, and Rarity knew the librarian had been feeling rather shy and awkward about her new alicorn related growth spurt.
"That said," she continued. "I can assure you that Fluttershy does weigh less than Rainbow Dash, without going into details. So weight shouldn't be a concern, yes?"
Realizing Rarity was waiting on her approval, Scootaloo nodded agreement.
"Right then," Rarity said. "Dash, darling, if you'd step this way, please?"
Rainbow trotted around the table to the clearing. For her part, she wasn't exactly sure about this either. She'd never been self conscious about the size of her wings before, but now that Rarity was making a fuss over it, she really didn't like the idea of being compared to her friends. From the way Rarity was acting, she knew her wings probably couldn't be as big as Twilight's alicorn wings. That was okay though, wasn't it? Nopony had wings as big as the princesses, so they didn't really count. But Rarity also said Fluttershy's were almost as big, and that was probably bad. There was only, what, a one inch margin between the other two for her to fit in? And she couldn't have the largest wings, unless she was completely misunderstanding the point Rarity was trying to make to Scootaloo. But what if she was wrong and...
Her thoughts were interrupted by a polite cough from Rarity. Rainbow looked up, and saw the unicorn nodding at her still-folded wings. Oh, right, have to actually open them, she thought. As she did so, she wondered what the results would be. She didn't want to lose, but this wasn't something she could just try harder at.
"Relax dear," Rarity said. "It's not a contest."
Rainbow Dash realized her wings were actually twitching as she strained and stretched them as far as possible, and forced herself to just stop thinking about it and relax.
A few moments later, Rarity was done, and Dash returned to her seat.
Rarity held the tape out in front of her, presenting it to Scootaloo for inspection.
"So as you can see, not only are Dash's wings not twenty percent larger than Fluttershy's or Twilight's... they're actually around ten percent smaller."
At that, Dash looked almost more surprised than Scootaloo, stretching out one wing and turning her head to start at it in disbelief. Seeing this, Rarity turned to Dash. "As I said, it's not a contest." She then turned back to Scootaloo and continued. "And as I was trying to explain to you, a pegasus's wing size has very little to do with their ability to fly. Much more important—as Rainbow Dash clearly demonstrates—are things like determination, skill, finesse, and practice. It's all about how you manipulate the air around you. There are fully grown pegasi with wings smaller than yours are now, and they are able to fly just fine. You just have to have patience. You'll get there eventually, I promise."
At this, she put a hoof around the young filly and drew her into another hug, which Scootaloo eagerly returned.
"So, I'm not... broken?" Scootaloo said.
"No darling, I promise you, you'll be just fine."
"So your wings are small," Apple Bloom chimed in, trying to cheer her friend up as well. "So what? At least you're not a mud monster."
"Yeah," Sweetie Belle added. "Or a robot with glowing blue goop for blood."
"Wait a minute," Rainbow Dash interjected. "Your blood glows blue?"
Sweetie wasn't sure where this was going, and hesitantly responded, "Umm, yeah. It does."
"That... is... so... awesome!"
"Umm," Sweetie replied, still confused. "Thanks, I guess?"
"I can't really speak to 'awesome,'" Twilight said. "But it is definitely fascinating. Would you mind if I, well, took a small sample?"
"Of my blood?"
"I promise you'll barely feel it. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo too, so I can compare things properly."
The Cutie Mark Crusaders looked at Twilight with more than a little apprehension.
"Okay, I guess." Apple Bloom was the first to give in, then Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo nodded affirmations shortly afterwards.
"Oh thank you thank you. I'll be right back," Twilight said, speeding off to the basement and returning a moment later with a set of vials and needles.
The alicorn librarian quickly took small samples from each of the young fillies. Everypony in the room “oohed” and “awwed” at the blue glow from Sweetie's sample. Only Twilight seemed to be equally enthused by the mud and water-like samples from the other two.
"Wow, this is fascinating," Twilight said, as she scanned and probed the samples using her magic. "All three of these are full of latent magic at a level I've never seen."
She turned to Sweetie and continued. "Now, this one is the most obvious. It's unicorn magic, and that makes perfect sense given that you are both a unicorn, and that, if the story is correct, the original clockwork was made by a talented unicorn as well. The other two, well..."
Twilight then turned to Apple Bloom. "I may completely have missed this one even last year before I got my wings. Earth pony magic is very subtle, and I've only learned to properly sense and use it since I became an alicorn. That said, it's still very, very strong. It seems to literally be made of earth itself."
"You mean mud?" Apple Bloom said.
"I guess you could call it that, but it's so much more too. Now Scootaloo," Twilight said, turning to the pegasus. "Your blood is similarly charged. In fact, it looks like some thaumaturgical component even behaves as a clotting agent. Absolutely fascinating! Probably essential too, given that otherwise the sample appears to be nothing but water."
"You're saying my blood has magic in it?"
"Oh yes, its amazingly dense with latent pegasus magic!"
"But," Scootaloo said. "How can that be? Pegasi don't have magic."
"Of course they do," Twilight replied, somewhat confused how a pegasus could not know this. Rarity simply put her hoof to her forehead and sighed, before bending down once more to eye level with the young pegasus, who was looking more confused than ever.
"Oh darling, that's the point I was trying to make earlier. Pegasus flight isn't based on wings or their size. It's a pegasus's inner magic—the same thing that lets them walk on clouds, resist lightning strikes, control the weather, and build things like Cloudsdale. That same magic is what lets a pegasus fly as well. No pony's wings would ever be big enough to even lift them off the ground without it."
Scootaloo looked skeptical, and Twilight, not one to pass up a chance to enlighten, jumped in.
"It's true. Look at butterflies, or birds and... Wait just a second." Twilight turned and trotted upstairs, returning a moment later with a rather groggy looking owl perched on her back.
"Owlowicious, would you please spread your wings for a moment?"
"Hoo," was all the bird replied.
"You, and yes I know you're tired, and I'm sorry for waking you, but this will only take a moment."
The owl opened one eye a bit wider, as though he was considering another word, but thought better of it. The sooner this was over, the sooner he could go back to sleep, so he spread his wings wide. Beneath him, Twilight did the same.
"As you can see, his wingspan is not much less than my own, but his body is much, much smaller and lighter, as it has to be to fly without any magic."
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Scootaloo said. "I mean, that one time we tried hang gliding, the glider was way, way bigger than any pegasus wings, and we still crashed."
Twilight laughed a bit nervously. How exactly did these fillies keep getting into such outlandish—and often dangerous—scenarios? That was a problem for another time though. For now, she dismissed the owl and continued.
"So you see, a pegasus's control of their inner magic is the most essential thing to flight. This only comes with practice and discipline, as they learn to manipulate the air around them in conjunction with their wings."
"Wait a minute..." Rainbow Dash interjected, something just now occurring to her. "Why are the two unicorns the ones telling a pegasus how to fly when you've got the best flier in Equestria right here?"
Rarity felt her ire raise instantly, and before anypony could blink she had turned, pointed a hoof directly at Dash, and through gritted teeth was sputtering, "Because you..."
Realizing she was about to become even louder if she didn't control herself, the white unicorn forced herself to take a couple of deep breaths, and waited for her eye to stop twitching with frustration before she continued.
"Because you," she said, this time in a much more civilized tone. "Have apparently failed to do so."
"What do you mean?" Dash said, confused. "I've been taking Scoots out to flying lessons all the time."
Rarity took another calming breath. "Yes," she said. "Then I suppose you've explained this all to her? How she needs to find and center her magic, focus on the air around her wings, make it denser in places, thin it in others, synchronize that in pulses that match with wing beats, and deflect the rest around her body to lower drag?"
"Umm..." Dash said, perplexed. "You don't have to do all that. You just have to push off, flap your wings, and just kinda feel the air around you."
"And if that doesn't work?" Rarity said.
"Well, you just have to try harder."
Rarity sighed. "Try harder? Is that all you've been telling her at those flight lessons?"
"Well, I showed her a lot of cool tricks, and the moves in each one. Oh, and we went through the rules for like all four of the main racing leagues!"
Rarity just glared at the cyan pegasus, who at least had the sense to look abashed at her attempted excuse.
"She's right, squirt," Rainbow said, looking down at Scootaloo after she couldn't face Rarity's gaze any longer. "Maybe I'm not the best teacher. I mean, it's all just instinct for me. I never had to properly learn it, I just did it."
"But..." Scootaloo said. "You're the best! You're like the only pony ever that can do a Sonic Rainboom!"
"Heh, yeah," Rainbow said, rubbing the back of her head. "But, uh, I don't even know how I do it. I just 'try harder' like Rarity said."
Rarity started to smile, glad to see Dash understanding and acquiescing a bit.
"That reminds me," Dash said, turning to the unicorn. "How do you know so much about pegasus flight?"
"Curiosity, dear. Twilight's not the only one that reads books, you know."
"Hey," Rainbow said. "I read books!"
At this Twilight and Rarity both smirked.
"I do! You've seen me! I read, like, all six Daring Do books that came out this year!"
Twilight and Rarity just grinned wider, as did the rest of the mares in the room. Scootaloo, however, looked positively shocked.
"Wait," she said. "You like books?"
Realizing she was bragging about something she'd openly mocked only a couple years ago gave Rainbow pause, before even she herself appreciated the irony of the situation and started laughing.
"Heheh, yeah... yeah, I do actually," she admitted, both to herself and Scootaloo. "But seriously, Rares. What made you read a book about pegasus flight?"
"Well," Rarity said. "If you must know, it was while I was dating this handsome pegasus stallion. I asked him one time, what it was like to fly, and, well, he was not much one for words. The next time I saw him however, he loaned me a book on it. Quicksilver's Feathers and Flight I believe it was."
"Spike!" Twilight yelled. "Where did we put..."
"Already on it," the young dragon said, his much more civilized volume still easily heard as he left his spot only a foot away from the alicorn. After a quick climb up the shelves, Spike returned with the mentioned tome.
"Thank you, Spike," Twilight said. "And sorry for the yelling. I didn't realize you..."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Spike said, waving a dismissive claw. The slight grin on his face betrayed the otherwise offended tone of his voice. "No pony ever notices the noble, ferocious, fire breathing dragon mere inches from their hooves."
Twilight giggled softly as she placed the book on the table and leafed through a few pages.
"Yes," she said. "I think this may be the best introduction. I reread it a few months ago myself. Obviously I'm no expert, but it did help me get off the ground."
"So," Scootaloo said. "You're telling me you learned how to fly from a book?"
"Have you met Twilight?" Rainbow said jovially. "Of course she did. She probably learned how to breathe from a book!"
"Yes, ha ha, Dash," Twilight said. "But in all seriousness, I found it very helpful. I'm not saying it made me an expert, but it let me know what I needed to work on at the very least."
"Yeah, squirt," Dash said, her voice taking on a more encouraging tone. "You should listen to her and Rares on this. They might be eggheads, but they usually know what they're talking about. Besides, once you figure out the basics their way, then I can really show you some awesome tricks!"
"Really?" the filly said, still uncertain that her athletic idol was trying to get her to read a book.
"Really, really! I mean, after everything we just figured out, it turns out I'm kinda like the stork that dropped you off after all, and I can't let any pony that close to me be anything less than totally awesome!"
"But reading an entire book?"
"You're not gonna let one measly book stand between you and the skies, right?"
Scootaloo knew she was trapped now. Of course she wanted to fly, more than pretty much anything, but her... reading a book that wasn't forced on her by school? On the other hoof, if even Dash liked books now, it couldn't be that bad, right?
"Okay," the filly said. "I'll give it a try."
"Excellent!" Twilight said, clapping her forehooves together. "Now, let's see. Do you have a library card? No... well no matter, let me just get the right forms over..."
"Twilight!" Applejack said.
"Yes, AJ?" Twilight said, oblivious.
The farm pony "coughed," nodding down at the once again hesitant filly.
Twilight realized what Applejack was suggesting. It violated every aspect of what library procedure should be, but she knew her friend was right. It was just a book. She didn't have to be a stickler for the rules all the time, even if it was painful to break them.
"Umm, you know what," Twilight said. "Never mind all that. You just take the book and bring it back when you're done, okay?"
At this, Scootaloo nodded.
"Hey," Rainbow Dash said, nudging the filly with one wing. "What do you say?"
Scootaloo sighed, but dutifully replied. "Thank you, Miss Sparkle."
Twilight smiled. "You're very welcome, Scootaloo. And if you have any questions, you can always come talk to me, or—and I don't think I'm speaking out of turn here—any of the girls here."
"Yes, darling," Rarity added. "We'll be delighted to help anyway we can."
"That goes for you two as well," Twilight said, nodding towards Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. "I know you both have sisters here, but if you ever need help practicing your magic or anything, I'm here."
"Thanks, Twilight," the fillies chorused in monotone, though they were actually all smiling by this point.
"You're welcome, girls. Now, would anypony like..." Twilight's sentence faded out as she caught sight of Pinkie once again vibrating up and down, and grinning ear to ear again.
"Umm, Pinkie... something you want to share... again?"
"I'm just so happy!" The pink blur said. "I gave away three wishes, and now there's like nine ponies and a dragon in this room alone all happier because of it. And then of course there's Scootaloo's parents and aunts who all smile more having her in their lives, and the big humongous Apple family all laugh more often because Apple Bloom is around, and of course Sweetie's parents, and their family can't help but be happy whenever they hear her sing. And then there's all their friends, and friends of friends and their friends and even that one mailpony they helped that time and whoever got their letter instead of having it lost has got to be happier and so out in the big wide crazy amazing world there are dozens and dozens if not hundreds and hundreds or even thousands and thousands of more ponies whose lives are happier! See! I told you wishes are unlimited! You just have to give them away and then they multiply everywhere! Knowing that so many other ponies are happier is the most bestest thing ever! I don't think there's anything that could possibly make me happier than I am right now!"
"Well," Twilight said, smiling deeply, both at the amazing selflessness of her friend, but also because she spotted a weakness she knew she could exploit. "I was about to ask if anypony would like another round of cocoa before heading out..."
And for once, Pinkie Pie was finally proven to be wrong about something. Smiling as she licked foam and a miniature marshmallow off the tip of her nose however, she didn't seem to mind too much.
----
Later that evening, Applejack was escorting her sister back to the farm.
"So," Apple Bloom said. "I, ah, didn't bring it up back there, as Scootaloo was so upset, but ah still don't think I understand what earth pony magic's supposed to be. Do all of us have it?"
Applejack thought for a moment, as the two continued along the road. "Well, ah course we do. Us earth ponies... it ain't flashy like with unicorns. There's no glowy levitatin' and big spells or nothin'. It's just, like Twi said, subtle."
"Watcha mean by that, exactly?"
"Well, take apple buckin', for instance. Most ponies might watch an' think it's all about strength. They think I just kick a tree really hard. Now, ah course I do kick mighty hard, but ya can't just knock every apple outta a tree in one go with brute force."
"Ya can't?"
"Well, ah suppose with enough force, ya could do almost anything. But it's... well, there's a connection with the trees 'emselves. Ya can kinda sense it, knowin' where to put yer hooves, and the angles and all that. When you hit the trunk, it's almost like ya make a connection with the tree itself for a moment, and it knows you want it to let go of all the ripe apples it's been holdin' for ya."
"So that's why I can't get all them apples out like you do!"
"Heh, well sugarcube, yer still mighty small too. It ain't all about force, but it does take a fair bit of it, even with the finesse."
"So how did ya learn to do that fine-ess stuff?"
"It ain't just about buckin' things, Bloom. It's about all the earth pony stuff. Plantin' and growin' things especially. You know that feelin' ya get when you walk along a creek bank in spring? How everything just feels like it's ready to explode into life?"
Apple Bloom pondered this a minute. "Yeah, I think ah know what you mean."
"Or when ya walk past the trees in winter, you can feel a bit a life comin' from each. It's almost like ya know they're sleepin' and waiting for the warmth to come back."
"Ah always thought that was just in my head or somethin'."
"Heh, well, it is in a way, but it's also a real thing in the world. As I said, it's a subtle thing. You can learn to pay more attention to it though."
"Really? Can ya teach me how?"
"Easy there, sis. I mean, there ain't that much to teach. As much as I hate soundin' like Rainbow, it's just kinda somethin' ya have to feel for yerself."
Apple Bloom looked dejected at this. "Well then," she said. "How's an earth pony ever supposed ta learn this stuff?"
"Just work on it. Let yerself be aware of the life around you. Think about it when ya walk past flowers and fields, try to feel it more. It'll come ta ya. There ain't an Apple been born yet that didn't find a strong connection with the earth 'neath her hooves!"
Apple Bloom sighed, hanging her head.
"What's a matter? Not the answer ya were lookin' for?"
"Not really. I mean, come on, sis. That all sounds like a bunch a hokey folky junk."
"Would ya like it better if I told ya you could gain all yer earth pony magic if ya just dance around a maypole five times on a full moon while chanting an ancient earth pony rite?"
"Really?" Apple Bloom said, looking up with excitement.
Applejack laughed. "No, sorry there, AB. There ain't no shortcuts like that in the real world. Ya just have to work at it like every other earth pony has since the start of time."
"But I ain't a normal earth pony!" Apple Bloom objected.
Applejack looked at her little sister, unsure exactly how to respond to that at first, but eventually decided to keep the mood light.
"Well," she said. "There's a couple a poles for the old tent in the barn if ya really feel like dancin'."
The next few weeks were a bit of an emotional roller coaster for the Cutie Mark Crusaders. They made a pact to keep their true natures secret from the other foals at school, though it felt a bit less fun than their normal pacts and secrets, as even Applejack had suggested it might be a good idea for now. While they didn't tell any other foals about it, the three fillies would still rush to their clubhouse after school each day to speculate and fantasize about what it might mean to be born from a magic cupcake. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were mostly curious about what their conditions implied for the future. Scootaloo professed not to care if she was "made of clouds or whatever," being much more concerned with the new things she was learning about flying. Her friends were pleased to see the pegasus once again being enthusiastic and energetic, the new approach to flight lessons having given the filly new hope.
So, as the weeks went on, life slowly returned to normal for the trio, the thoughts of weird blood and weirder cupcakes fading from their day to day conversations as their focus returned back to the normal complaints about homework, idle chatter, and random ideas they'd always shared.
There were a few changes though. All three admitted they were actually trying to practice with the latent magic Twilight assured them they held. Sweetie and Apple Bloom were also particularly amazed to see Scootaloo with her nose in a book quite regularly. They figured some changes were definitely for the better though, and the energy and impatience of the pegasus had changed little, so all things considered, the trio found life to be pretty comfortable again.
Meanwhile, Twilight was quite busy trying to figure out exactly what the fillies actually were. She had written to Celestia and Luna, relaying the initial story she'd pieced together, as well as her early speculations. Celestia had responded that neither she nor her sister had come across a situation quite like that before, but suggested a few avenues of research for Twilight to pursue. Very little of it bore fruit, though a few threads did have some promise. The only solid thing Twilight really had after the first few weeks though, was a proper name for what the fillies were. That word was "golem."
She'd found it in a collection of ancient earth pony legends from before the tribes were united. According to the story, the first golem had been created to help protect an earth pony village from the attacks of unicorn and pegasi marauders. The golem had been made of mud from the banks of the river the settlement straddled, and given life by the earth pony magic of its creator. After she'd found the word, Twilight was able to track down a few more legends about golems in other literature. There were quite a few variations, but the core elements were the same: a living creature made from inanimate matter, meant to protect those around it, and often wielding unusual or powerful magic of its own. In some stories, it was wicker and cloth, in others, piles of rocks, or even gems. Many, like the original, used mud or earth.
Some stories even talked about statues, paintings, and other things being brought to life. Those usually didn't use the word "golem" however, and, more often than not, involved a unicorn. Twilight figured those cases were likely variations of the ironically named "come to life" spell. There were several unicorn spells that could animate an unliving object, giving it the appearance of life, but it wasn't the real thing. Twilight knew very well that unicorn magic could only manipulate things, not create life. Of course, those "things" could be—and often were—alive, but a unicorn couldn't control life itself. She could break bones and end it, or stitch wounds to help save it, but only earth pony magic touched on lifeforce directly. As such, Twilight felt pretty confident that the proper golem stories—if true at all—would have to involve earth pony magic.
Of course, there was almost no modern evidence at all of earth pony magic being strong enough to do anything close to that. Most ponies didn't really even think of their earthen kin as having magic at all, though when pushed on it, most admitted there were some near-magical things earth ponies were somehow always best at. Know where to dig a well? Sure. Sense when a flower was about to bloom? Definitely. Feel a friend getting sick before even they do? Of course. But create life from clay? That seemed to stretch all credibility.
"Credibility, heh..." Twilight giggled at the word when she realized what she'd been thinking. Of course it was important to maintain a skeptical perspective when dealing with myth and lore, but how "credible" was her own life if you stepped back and looked at it? Just a few years ago, no pony at all believed her that Nightmare Moon was returning until it actually happened. Certainly no pony would ever have believed how a bunch of young mares released Luna from the Nightmare that same day, if Luna herself hadn't been both witness and direct evidence. Likewise Sombra, the return of the Crystal Empire, a changling invasion, and best not to even get started on the "credibility" of anything related to Discord. Remembering all this, Twilight readjusted her expectations. If the past few years had taught her anything, well... It wasn't that she'd come to actually believe there was such a thing as "fate"—she was still a firm believer in free will—but she had developed quite a healthy respect for "narrative coincidence." Three fillies, all created ex nihilo by magic cupcakes, in a singular, convoluted day that somehow involved her and all five of the other Elements of Harmony... Yes, she thought, must maintain some skepticism, but must also not dismiss anything as being "un"—or even "in"—credible at this point... especially with a particular earth pony named Pinkie Pie involved. So she read on.
Going through the other alleged golem tales with that in mind, several seemed quite plausible, if you gave them their one "incredible" premise at least. There was, however, one that gave her definite pause for thought, one about a golem made from wood and trees. The story was actually a legend, describing how the original timberwolf was created, and how it had turned on—and eaten alive—its creator when she had abused it one time too many. Twilight couldn't believe for a moment that those three little fillies—destructive though they may be in their own ways—could share anything in common with the monstrous beasts in the Everfree. She tried to console herself with the knowledge that, at best, these were legends, and not anywhere near what she'd consider "credible" sources. After her recent epiphany on that word though, it rang a bit hollow, and she found herself really wishing that the creator in that particular tale hadn't also been an earth pony.
Twilight had just put away the tome with the disconcerting story in it, and was trotting to the kitchen for some tea when a hoof knocked at the door.
"Back again so soon?" Twilight said, after opening the door to reveal Scootaloo.
"Yeah," the filly said. "I finished reading those two books you gave me last time, and while I think I maybe understood most of it, there're definitely some concepts in there that I couldn't grasp."
Twilight was really surprised that the filly had gotten through those books at all. When Scootaloo had returned only three days after she'd loaned that first book, she'd assumed the filly was going to give up. Instead, the little pegasus had asked for more. Twilight had pulled a couple of pegasus exercise manuals and even a biography of famous fliers, but Scootaloo had dismissed those, saying she needed books on how to actually fly, not how to do wing-ups. Eventually she'd left with an introduction to aerodynamics, and one on basic thaumaturgical principles. When the filly had left, Twilight was sure that was going to be the end of her reading career. But now she was back, so maybe there was still hope.
"Don't feel bad," Twilight said. "Those books are nearly university level. It's impressive that you got through them at all."
"Well, I... I did have to skip some parts, and read a lot of things over and over. But it starts to make sense once you get the bigger picture in your head, you know?"
Twilight smiled, the joy and sense of learning had, of course, always been one of her favorite things. "Yes," she said. "But isn't it a great feeling when you finally make sense of it all?"
"Heh," the filly laughed bashfully. "You, ah... could say that."
Twilight sensed something was being left out. "Is there something you want to tell me, Scootaloo?"
"Kinda, I guess. Like, I wanna tell somepony, but... well, promise me you won't tell Rainbow Dash?"
"Umm..." Twilight wasn't sure what to make of that request. "As long as it's not something she deserves to know, I guess I can promise to keep it secret."
"No... nothing bad!" Scootaloo assured her. "I just want to surprise her later is all."
"Okay then, I promise. What's the secret?"
"Well, the books... it's actually kinda working. Look!"
With that, Scootaloo gave a small hop into the air, buzzing her wings. She managed a wobbling hover for several seconds before having to set back down, the strain on her face evident by the end.
The filly blushed a bit, "Yeah, thanks I guess. I just figured it out a couple days ago."
"Well that's still pretty good for just starting something new."
"Sure, but I know I can do better. I'm learning so much each day when I read through this stuff. I just want to wait until I can really fly, then I can surprise Dash with it!"
"I'm sure she'd love that!"
"Right, but I need to learn more then, so..."
"Ah, of course," Twilight said, switching to librarian mode. "What can I help you with?"
"Well, for starters..." Scootaloo pulled out one of the books she'd brought with her and paged through it for a moment. "What does this letter mean?"
Twilight looked at where the pegasus was pointing, and found it was in a page full of calculus equations. It was actually some pretty advanced math too, well beyond what a filly Scootaloo's age could be expected to understand. She didn't want to disappoint the young pegasus, but... "Umm... that's actually not a letter. Well, I mean, it is, but it's in another alphabet, but here it's actually a symbol for this special type of math problem called an integral."
"What's an integral?"
"That's a pretty complicated concept, Scootaloo. I'm not sure you're ready for university level math like that."
"But it's something I need to know to understand the stuff on this page, right?"
Twilight looked again at the page in question. Variable acceleration, changing drag coefficients, air density variations... the page was full of physics. "Yeah, you would. I'm sorry."
"Wait... Sorry?"
"This is the sort of math they'll teach you when you get to university."
"Could you teach it to me now?"
Twilight sighed, hating to hurt anypony's feelings. "I'm not sure this is really what you need right now. Maybe if you just practice what you've already learned a bit and stick to the basics."
"But... But I need this to go faster! And I think I already kinda get some of it." The orange filly gestured at the page with one hoof. "This is like, building up speed, but the air is like, slowing you down at the same time or whatever, so there's speed you lose trying to get more speed."
Twilight mentally edited out the filler words, and realized that was at least a vague description of acceleration versus drag as related to total velocity... but still a long way from understanding fluid dynamics. "I'm sorry Scootaloo, but this is pretty complex stuff. I'm not sure that you're ready for it yet."
"Wait..." Scootaloo said. "Is it because you think I'm too stupid?"
"Now, I never said—"
"It is! You think I'm too dumb to figure this stuff out!"
"No, it's not that. It's just... Well, you're really young for this stuff, and..."
"Young? How old were you? You told us you didn't even have your cutie mark when you applied to Celestia's private school!"
Twilight felt like she'd been slapped across the face. Scootaloo was right. She'd been reading and studying university level subjects at the same age the pegasus was now. She'd faced exactly the same sort of disbelief and casual dismissal from all the adults around her too. Twilight wondered how in the world she'd come full circle in the intervening years. Now here she was, just inherently assuming this young and eager student couldn't handle a subject... and why? Because she was too young? Because she wasn't a unicorn? Oh, Twilight really hoped that wasn't the reason her subconscious was doing this. Or was it because the filly just wasn't the "bookish" type? Scootaloo was loud, confident, impatient, athletic, and... well, all those other things Twilight had spent years associating with "dumb ponies"—the ones she'd decided weren't worth her notice back during her years of lonely study in Canterlot. The truth, she sadly realized, was probably a combination of all those.
"Twilight?" Scootaloo said, noticing there were tears starting to well up in the alicorn's eyes after the moment of silence. "Are you okay?"
Twilight sniffled a bit and smiled, "Yes... I think you caught me just in time."
"What?" The filly said, tilting her head in complete confusion.
"Nevermind," Twilight said, wiping her eyes with a fetlock. "Just know I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like I thought poorly of you, or that I saw you as anything less than a bright young filly. And of course I'd be happy to teach you."
"Wow, really?"
Twilight nodded. "It's going to be hard though. I'm not kidding about this being university level subject material. Are you up for that?"
"Hey, if the easy book already let me figure out how to fly, then the hard ones... I figure those are what's gonna let me be really awesome!"
Twilight grinned to cover the sting she felt inside. That was exactly the sort of "logic" she'd expect to hear from the mouths of those "dumb ponies" and she winced reflexively at hearing it from Scootaloo now. Apparently she still had a nearly-innate loathing for such things. She forced aside the knee-jerk reaction though, and focused on what mattered. Here was a young filly, eager to learn and excited by a challenging subject. It just saddened her that she'd somehow forgotten, even for a moment, how incredibly important and amazing that should always be. Perhaps they'd both be learning some things in this endeavor.
----
"Ooh, look what the blank flank has!"
Apple Bloom was trotting to school nearly a full month after the big meeting when she'd heard the mocking tone. She looked up from the path, disappointed to find that the voice belonged, as she had feared, to Diamond Tiara.
"Yeah, what have you got there, blank flank?"
And right on schedule, thought Apple Bloom as she tried to ignore the two, there's Silver Spoon, with her always-original thoughts. She shifted to keep the flower pot as far away from the two as she could.
"Hey," Diamond said, moving to block the path to the schoolhouse. "I'm talking to you."
"Oh, were you?" Apple Bloom said. "I didn't hear my name."
Apple Bloom had never had much luck with sarcasm, but she'd tried most of the other things she could think of to avoid the bullies in front of her. Nothing really seemed to deter them though, and at least it made her feel slightly better if she got in one or two clever remarks.
"Oh, are you trying to get your cutie mark in deafness now?"
That... that didn't even make sense, and Apple Bloom couldn't think of a clever comeback either, so she just sighed and responded, "Leave me alone Diamond. I just want to get to school."
"Why?" Diamond said, poking the wooden flower pot Apple Bloom was carrying on her back. "So you can give those flowers to your coltfriend?"
Ugh, Apple Bloom thought, now it looked even worse than it actually was. "No," she said. "These are for Miss Cheerilee. It's her birthday this weekend."
"Trying to suck up to the teacher, are we?" Diamond chided.
"No, it's just a nice thing to do. Yer always supposed to give ponies gifts on their birthday."
"So why flowers? Your family finally run out of apples?"
Apple Bloom had actually wondered the same thing herself, but Applejack had insisted that a gift should be something special. So, even though an apple was a standard gift for a teacher, it might mean a bit less if it came from a family that was literally called Apple, and therefore always had plenty of the fruit to spare. Applejack had then suggested she get her teacher some flowers instead. So now Apple Bloom had a small wooden pot with three white and yellow flowers growing in it balanced between her saddle bags. That was way too many words to say to Diamond though, so her reply was simply, "I thought she'd like these better."
"Oh really? But they're so... fragile!"
"What do ya mean by..." Apple Bloom was cut off as Silver Spoon "accidentally" bumped into her from the side, causing the flower pot to fall to the ground. Diamond Tiara then made a show of looking up and away at some imaginary thing in the sky as she stomped firmly on the flowers sticking out of the pot.
"Oops, I didn't see that there. I'm sooo sorry!" Diamond said, before turning to Silver and laughing. "Guess you should have brought an apple after all. I mean, it's all you're good for anyway!"
Seeing that Apple Bloom was starting to get tears in her eyes, the two other fillies decided their work was done and trotted off, giggling between themselves. Apple Bloom knelt down to look at the damage as she felt tears start to track through the fur on her cheeks. She righted the pot and did what she could to scoop the soil back into it. Thankfully, she'd picked a wooden bucket-like pot. She'd just thought it looked more rustic than the ceramic ones at the shop, but now she was glad it was more durable too.
While the soil and pot were quite salvageable, the flowers themselves were in much worse shape. Diamond had stomped them pretty hard, the edge of her hoof nearly severing the stem of two of them, and completely crushing the head and petals of the third. Apple Bloom tried to straighten out the bent stems, wondering if she could fix them somehow, but they couldn't support their own weight, flopping over at the damaged point the moment she let go.
As she held the flowers upright one more time, she focused on the inner senses she'd been practicing with the past few weeks. She thought she could almost feel the damage inside the plants, the crushed capillaries blocking off any hope of nutrients making their way up from the soil to the bloom, and the damaged head on the other swelling with fluids which would quickly lead to it rotting from the inside. She could sense it was hopeless. All three flowers were beyond fixing. They were dying, and it was all because of those stupid, good for nothing bullies that wouldn't leave her alone!
Apple Bloom couldn't hold back her tears anymore, and she flopped down right in the middle of the path and started crying softly over the remains of the flowers. It just wasn't fair. It was never fair. She'd told Applejack she wasn't jealous of those two "snooty richfillies," but she was. Why did they get everything? They had their marks. They had rich families and got every toy, jewel, or dress they ever wanted. On top of that, they were never the ones left crying in the middle of the road, but were the ones trotting away laughing. And the worst part... the worst part was even though they were maybe the worst two fillies ever, and no one should ever want to be near them... they even had friends!
In stories, the bad guy might be rich, he might get to laugh, and he might even win, but he certainly never got to have friends... but those two fillies had each other, and while Apple Bloom knew she much preferred her own friends, it wasn't fair that two worthless bullies even got each other! It even makes it worse, she thought, as they get to team up to make every other foal's life that much more miserable! Here she was, a good pony, just trying to be kind to a teacher that—despite giving out more homework than Apple Bloom really would've preferred—really tried hard to help all her students, both in and out of school. Now, even if she and her friends somehow got back at Diamond and Silver later, it still wouldn't make everything better. Apple Bloom had tried revenge. It felt good for a moment, but it never really fixed things, and fixing things was the one thing Apple Bloom was good at... at least in everything else. It seemed she always failed miserably at it when it came to other ponies though. She couldn't fix Diamond and Silver, couldn't fix the bullying, and she couldn't fix the fact that Cheerilee wouldn't get the flowers. And these flowers—the ones in her own hooves that were crushed and dying—she couldn't do a thing to fix those either.
As she wept into her hooves, cradling the broken flowers in their small bucket of soil, that's all Apple Bloom could think about, how unfair life was, and how there just had to be a way to make things right, to make the hurt stop, to just fix it all, or even just to fix one little tiny flower that somehow now meant so much.
After a while, her sobs eventually started to subside, and Apple Bloom opened her eyes, blinking away the remaining tears. She couldn't quite understand what she was seeing at first. It took a moment for her brain to connect the dots, and for her hoof to clear the remaining tears so she could be sure her eyes weren't deceiving her. When she did so though, she saw something that she'd remember vividly—and for the rest of her life—as the second best thing that happened that day.
The actual best thing was, of course, the look of utter shock and confusion on the faces of her two tormentors when she'd trotted into class and given Cheerilee a small, wooden pot, filled with no less than a dozen healthy flowers in full bloom. Well, either that, or how completely speechless the two were when she turned and gave them the biggest and most self-satisfied smirk she could manage. Yeah, that one was pretty good too.
----
"Golems, huh?" Apple Bloom said, as the three fillies sat around their clubhouse later that weekend. "What exactly does that mean?"
"Well," Sweetie responded. "Twilight said it was an old earth pony legend. Supposedly about inanimate things brought to life to protect the ponies that created them."
"So, kinda like us then?" Scootaloo said.
"That's what Twilight said when I talked to her."
"Well, at least it's better than mud monsters," Apple Bloom said.
"Umm, actually..." Sweetie started to explain what golems were most often made of, then thought better of it.
"Yeah?" Apple Bloom said, curious.
"Uh, I was..." Sweetie thought quickly, and found the verbal escape route. "I was just wondering why you were so excited when we talked about meeting up here today."
"Heh, yeah," Scootaloo added. "You seemed pretty excited about something. I'm just glad you don't have a knife this time."
Apple Bloom blushed a bit, remembering how panicked she'd been the day she'd first discovered something was different about herself. She felt much more optimistic about her surprise today though.
"Nah, it's nothing bad this time, I promise."
"Well, what is it?" Sweetie said.
"Gimme a sec," Apple Bloom said, and retrieved a pot with some soil in it from the corner of the clubhouse. "Alright, now watch this."
The other fillies weren't exactly sure what they were supposed to be watching, but gave their friend the benefit of the doubt as she closed her eyes and placed a hoof on the soil in the pot. Nothing happened at first, and Scootaloo, never one for patience, was about to speak up when Sweetie pointed at something in the soil. The two fillies looked down, and saw a small green tendril just breaking through the surface. After another moment or two, it had grown into a stem, and before they knew it, they were staring at a fully blossoming flower.
The "trick" complete, Apple Bloom opened her eyes and looked to see her friends' reactions. "So," she said. "What do ya'll think?"
"Wow, AB, that sure is something," Sweetie said.
"Yeah, how'd you do it?" Scootaloo asked.
"Well, I got to talkin' with my sis on the way home that night, after that big meeting at Twilight's. Anyway, she started explainin' about how earth pony magic was subtle and stuff, and I thought I knew a bit what she was talking about, but didn't think much of it. I did try an' practice a bit, and I thought sometimes I could maybe, I dunno, 'feel' somethin' in the plants and trees and things. I wasn't ever sure it weren't just in my head though. Then a couple days ago..."
She continued the story, recounting what had happened after Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had gotten in her way, finishing with how amazing it'd felt to see them both put in their places.
"Wow, so that's why they looked so confused when you walked in!" Sweetie said.
"Yeah, that's awesome! You showed them!" Scootaloo exclaimed, adding a hoof pump for emphasis.
"So why didn't you tell us sooner?" Sweetie asked.
"Well..." Apple Bloom felt bad for keeping another secret, but hadn't meant it that way. "I think I just wanted to make sure it was real first. I went home after school that day, and tried to do it again. At first, I couldn't, and that really kinda scared me. But I kept practicin' and tryin'. It took me another day before I could do it again, and by that point, I figured it'd be cooler to just show ya'll like this. Sorry I left ya'll out though, I didn't really mean to."
"Naw, it's okay," Scootaloo said. "It was pretty cool as a surprise just now."
Sweetie nodded at that, then added, "And, to be honest, I kind of have a trick of my own I've been practicing."
The other two fillies looked eagerly at their friend. "Well what is it?" Scootaloo asked.
"Promise not to laugh?"
"Why would we laugh?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Just promise."
"Okay, I promise I won't laugh," Apple Bloom said.
"Me too," Scootaloo said.
With that, Sweetie Belle brought her front hoof up to her face, and somehow, someway, managed to stick the entire thing in her mouth. The look on the other fillies' faces was priceless, but quickly devolved into barely contained laughter.
"You guys promised!" Sweetie said, after removing her hoof.
"Yeah, sorry Sweetie," Apple Bloom said, after throttling her own laughter. "How the hay did you manage to do that anyway?"
"Well, you know how I'm apparently made of clockwork and such?" The other two nodded. "So after that revelation, I started practicing with magic harder than I have before. That's actually why I'd been talking with Twilight; she's been giving me some extra lessons. Anyway, I'd never managed more than a few sparks before, but... I don't know. Somehow, knowing I was practically made of magic... it felt like it unlocked something for me. Suddenly I could feel it in me, and not long after that, I could feel how it sort of... I don't really know how to describe it. I could feel how everything inside me fit together."
"How does that let you put your hoof in your mouth though?" Scootaloo asked.
"I'm getting to that part, Scoots. As I was saying, I could feel how it fit together. When I'm not thinking about it, everything in me works like a normal pony I think. Magic makes the pieces move like any other filly. But when I focus on it, I can directly move things, even change some things. What you just saw, that was the first really weird one I figured out. I felt the hinge in my jaw, and there was no physical reason why it stayed together, just some sort of automated magic saying that's how a jaw works. I found that, with enough focus on it, the magic at the joint just lets go, and I can open my mouth really wide like that."
"Wow, that is... creepy... and awesome!" Scootaloo said, her thoughtful expression melting into a grin.
"Yeah, can you imagine doing that in front of Diamond and Silver?" Apple Bloom said.
"Heheh, they'd run away screaming!" Scootaloo agreed.
All three fillies laughed, picturing the two bullies fleeing in fear. After the laughs subsided, Apple Bloom spoke up. "So ya said that was the first trick. What else did ya figure out?"
"Well, I'm starting to get better with normal unicorn magic. I can actually levitate a few things now." Sweetie demonstrated this, juggling a couple of stuffed animals and the flower pot in her aura. "I think I also figured out why I never knew I had glowing blood before."
"Yeah, I was wonderin' about that," Apple Bloom said.
"It turns out, I don't think I've ever been injured before. At least not enough to actually make me bleed."
"No way," Scootaloo said, unconvinced. "You've done all the same crazy stuff we have trying to get our marks. We've crashed into like every tree in the world, and at least half the fences!"
"Yes, but... well, here, I'll show you," Sweetie said, using her aura to fetch some scissors from the craft bin by the wall and giving them to Scootaloo. "Here, try to hurt me," she said, holding out a front leg in front of the pegasus.
"What? No way, not this again!"
"Seriously, Scootaloo, it's okay. You won't hurt me, I promise."
"Argh, fine! What exactly do you want me to do?"
"Just try to make a small cut on my leg or something."
Scootaloo opened the scissors and ran the edge of one blade across her friend's foreleg. Nothing happened, so she looked up quizzically, searching for any sign of pain in Sweetie's expression.
"Go ahead, try again," the unicorn said.
Scootaloo tried again, and a third time as well, putting more force into it each time, before finally checking that the scissors were indeed sharp by slashing easily through a piece of craft paper.
"Okay," the pegasus finally admitted. "That's a pretty good trick there Sweetie. What gives?"
"I'm not completely sure, but as far as I can tell, being made of magic gives me some kind of magic shield. The only reason I could cut myself that first day was because I expected to be able to cut myself. When I'm not expecting to be hurt, I don't get hurt. Same way, when I'm not expecting my jaw to open extra wide, it doesn't. Oh, that reminds me, one other thing to show."
Sweetie stood up, and stretched out her left foreleg. Then stretched it out again. And again. At this point the leg was now twice as long as her other three limbs. Seeing the stunned expressions and gaping jaws of her two friends, she went ahead and returned the limb to its normal length before explaining.
"So it seems the mechanisms that serve as my bones are meant to expand. I imagine it may be so that I can actually grow to an adult size. Like with the other things though, if I focus and concentrate on some part of myself, it seems I can override the normal functionality there."
Sweetie looked between her friends, waiting to see who would recover first. Scootaloo—like in most things—was the fastest.
"So you're telling me you can just, grow up at will?" she said.
"Umm, I don't think it works quite like that. Growing up involves a lot more than just longer legs. Right now, I have to concentrate pretty hard to just alter a single piston or joint."
Scootaloo looked slightly disappointed, but then her expression cheered again. "Still though, you have like, awesome robot superpowers! I bet you probably don't even have to breathe! Wait... do you have to breathe?"
A thoughtful look crossed Sweetie's face. "You know, that never occurred to me. I wonder..." The unicorn closed her eyes and a look of concentration took over her features as she searched through the workings of her own body.
The other fillies sat patiently for a moment before Sweetie opened her eyes and spoke up. "Interesting..." she said. "I don't think I actually do have to breathe. Well, at least not more than once every couple of hours or so. I can sense some odd processes tangentially related to breathing that I don't quite understand yet though. It could be closer to once every few weeks. I'd probably need to practice and learn a bit more before I could go that long though."
Scootaloo waved hoof dismissively. "Oh, only a few hours for now then?"
"Yes, well... I think so. We could have a breath-holding contest to be sure."
"No thanks, Sweetie. You know I don't like losing... especially not by hours!"
Sweetie looked up, about to apologize for offending her friend, but saw that Scootaloo was actually grinning.
"Ya know," Apple Bloom said. "When ya talk about just 'feeling' how things are workin' with ya, but can't quite explain it... well, I think that's how I felt with those flowers and stuff. It's like I can feel and almost see all these complicated things goin' on inside that I never woulda understood before."
"Yeah," Sweetie said, nodding in agreement. "It's just like that. As though my mind is somehow comprehending things I never actually learned, and there are these millions of little details that I can touch and manipulate, but to actually explain it... I can't even begin to try."
"So," Scootaloo added. "Speaking of things you have to just feel, but can't explain..."
Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom turned to look at Scootaloo.
"Yeah?" Sweetie said, waiting for the explanation.
"So I think I'm like the opposite of you girls."
"How so?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Well, Dash has been trying to teach me how to fly for a couple of years now, and it never worked. For Dash... she can just 'feel' it, and I never could. Then, Rarity and Twilight explained all about pegasus magic and such..."
"Yeah, we were there," Sweetie reminded her friend.
"Right, well... like I said, I couldn't 'feel' it. But I spent the first few days after that meeting going over the book Twilight gave me, and it actually explained some of the stuff about how to fly. So I went and got another couple of books from the library, and they explained some more stuff, but it got complicated. I mean, I never thought I'd be, like, enjoying an actual book, much less learning from it, but then I was back for more books, and asking Twilight to teach me some of the more complicated stuff."
"And?" Apple Bloom eagerly asked, suspecting where her friend's explanation might be going.
"Well..." Scootaloo said, a grin spreading across her face. "Watch this."
With that, her wings started to flap, making their familiar, humming-bird-and-engine noise. This time though, Scootaloo lifted into the air... and stayed there.
"Oh my gosh, Scoots! You can fly!" Apple Bloom leapt and shouted.
"Congratulations!" Sweetie added, equally excited for her friend's accomplishment.
Scootaloo, still hovering, explained. "Unlike you two, I never understood pegasus magic... never felt it until it was explained."
"Yeah, that's great, Scoots!" Apple Bloom cheered.
"I... umm, I actually figured this part about almost two weeks ago, just from those first couple of books."
"What?" Apple Bloom objected. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"I don't know... same reason as you with the flowers. Just got distracted, then thought it'd be cooler to show you."
"That's fair enough, I guess."
"But then Twilight agreed to tutor me on some of the harder stuff, and I got more books to read, and now I really understand how pegasus magic works."
"Yeah Scootaloo, we couldn't be happier for you!" Sweetie said, smiling up at her finally airborne friend.
"No, I mean I really, really understand it."
At the confused looks from her friends, Scootaloo decided a demonstration was really the only way to explain... at least for now. So, she simply stopped flapping her wings. The other fillies looked on, dumbfounded. Silence descended over the clubhouse, and Scootaloo remained hovering in mid air, her wings perfectly stilled. Only the motion of a few small dust motes in a sunbeam betrayed the hundreds of subtly manipulated air currents being circulated to keep the pegasus aloft via magic alone.
----
"She can do what now?"
"I'm tellin' ya sis," Apple Bloom said for the third time. "She can fly, without flappin' her wings!"
"Now, that don't make no sense, AB. If a pony could fly without wings, then all of us would be doin' it now, wouldn't we?" Applejack turned and smiled at her sister, before delivering another kick to the tree behind her.
"Ugh..." Apple Bloom slid her hoof down her face. "I'm serious, Applejack. I saw it with my own eyes and everything! Scootaloo can fly, and she don't need her wings to do it! Why won't you believe me?"
Applejack stepped away from the tree and gave a good stare at her little sibling, before another smile cracked her face. "Aww, I can't do it!"
"Do what?" Apple Bloom said.
"I do believe ya, AB. Sorry for pretendin' otherwise. Twilight told me a couple of days ago. Said it was a secret though, and I should pretend I didn't know anything."
"But I already know the secret. Why would ya have to pretend to keep it from me?"
"Truth be told, Bloom, I was using you for practice. Just wanted to see if I could keep a straight face for more than a minute. Turns out I can't, which means I really can't be anywhere near Rainbow Dash 'till Scootaloo comes out in the open with it, which is gonna..." Applejack looked up into the distance behind her sister and rolled her eyes. "Well if I ain't just the luckiest pony ever..." she mumbled, as the aforementioned pegasus swooped down to land.
"Hey guys!" Dash said on landing. "Thought I heard my name over here. What's up?"
"Uhh, not much," Applejack said, a tad nervously. "Just buckin' apples as usual and all."
"Yeah," the pegasus said, looking around suspiciously. "That's cool and all, but... I know I heard you two talking about me."
Applejack looked back and forth, before nodding to her sister in what she felt was a "casual" way, though Apple Bloom might have described it more as a major nervous twitch. She got the hint anyway though.
"Hey Dash!" Apple Bloom said. "Scootaloo was telling me you were practicing a new stunt?"
"Oh yeah," Rainbow said, always excited to talk about her flying. "I'm calling it the double-inside, reverse triple-spin, death roll!"
"Sounds, uh... awesome!" Apple Bloom said, not sure what to make of such words in that particular order. "So, what's it actually look like?"
Rainbow Dash rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah... haven't actually figured that part out yet. Really just spent most of the time thinking up the name."
"Oh. Well, that's a cool name at least. You know who'd love to hear about it?"
"Who?"
"Scootaloo! I bet she could maybe even help you line up some parts of it or what not."
Rainbow's expression sunk at this.
"What's the matter?"
"Well, Scootaloo and I haven't really been hanging out much lately. Ever since I told her maybe I'm not the one to teach her how to fly... Well, she's been spending all her time with Twilight and stuff. I'm sure it's for the best though."
Apple Bloom was a bit taken aback by this. Scootaloo had told her and Sweetie that she was waiting to surprise Dash, but did she realize that Dash herself was taking it kind of hard? Hmm... should be pretty easy to fix that actually.
"I was just talking to her earlier," Apple Bloom lied. "She said she couldn't wait to practice with you again."
"Really?" Rainbow said.
"Yeah, she said she had some really awesome thing she wanted to show you, but she didn't think it was cool enough for Rainbow Dash yet."
Her honorary little sister did still want to spend time with her? That was awesome! And it didn't matter one bit to Rainbow how cool—or not—whatever it was she had to show ended up being. "Hey, I'm sure it's awesome, whatever it is," she said.
"Yeah, I sure think it's pretty cool, but she said it'd never be cool enough for Dash."
"What is it?" "I can't tell ya that, I think she wants it to be a surprise. Ya should go ask her yerself!"
"You don't think she'd mind?"
"I think she'd love to have her 'big sister' come check up on her!"
"Really?"
"Yeah," Apple Bloom assured her. "You should go find her."
"Okay," Dash said, half to herself. "I can do that."
With that, the pegasus launched herself into the air and her cyan form was quickly lost in the cerulean sky.
"Wow," Applejack said, after waiting for Dash to get beyond earshot. "That there was sure some quick thinkin', AB. I've never seen somepony wrangle Dash that smoothly."
Apple Bloom smiled. "Well, like ya said sis, us earth ponies just have to be a bit more subtle about things, right?"
----
"Hey squirt, mind if I join you?"
Scootaloo looked up from the book to find Rainbow Dash hovering above her and the park bench she'd been lying on.
"Uh... yeah," Scootaloo said, quickly closing the book and sitting up to make room. "No problem, Dash!"
Settling down onto the other end of the bench, Rainbow looked at her surrogate sister. "So, uhh, whatcha reading there?"
Scootaloo held the book tighter to herself, still not sure how to feel about being a "bookworm" in the eyes of her idol. She reminded herself that Dash claimed to love books too, but she feared this wasn't quite the same type of thing.
"Oh, come on Scoots, lemme see!" Dash said, gently pulling the book from the filly's hooves.
"Hmm..." Rainbow said, looking at the title. "Able Achievement's Advanced Aerodynamics and Applied Aerobatic Acumen. That sounds pretty dense."
Scootaloo could only nod in response.
Rainbow leafed through a few pages, frowning at the amount of math she saw, and even turning the book sideways to try and make sense out of a few of the larger graphs. "So, this sort of stuff helping you figure out how to get off the ground then?"
Scootaloo wasn't sure how to respond. Even though it'd only been a couple of months or so, it felt like forever since she'd been the eager student of Rainbow Dash. Then that night, Dash had practically dumped her onto Twilight and Rarity for proper training. Scootaloo got things now, saw and understood a lot of what her idol did, and it no longer seemed like... well... like magic. Her wonder at the feats of the cyan pegasus wasn't really there in the same way anymore. But she reminded herself, this was still Rainbow Dash. She wasn't just the fastest flier in Equestria, but was also her "big sister," who took her camping, told her stories, and helped her in food fights against Pinkie Pie. With that new perspective in mind, she looked up and with a smile said, "Yeah, it is actually."
Rainbow was glad to hear that. She'd been heartbroken realizing that maybe she wasn't doing right by Scootaloo trying to teach things her way, so it was great to hear that a new approach was working, even if she missed their practices together. Then she remembered what Apple Bloom had said.
"So I was told there was something 'awesome' that you were wanting to show me?"
"Wait," Scootaloo said. "How'd you know? Did Twilight tell you?"
Dash, never one to resist a good chance for a prank, confirmed that yes, definitely it was Twilight.
"Ugh, I knew she'd let it slip!"
"Let what slip?"
"Wait, you don't know!"
"Umm, of course I know."
"Know what?"
Rainbow was stumped now. Thinking hard, she realized it probably wasn't the book. What else would be an "awesome" secret that Scootaloo would want to show off to... She facehooved at the realization.
"Wait! Oh my gosh! Scoots! You can fly! That's it, right?"
Scootaloo, realizing that Twilight had not actually betrayed her confidence, just smiled and stood up off the bench.
"Yeah Dash," she said. "Check it out!"
With that, she leaped, fluttered her wings, and hovered a few feet off the ground.
Rainbow was amazed. "Oh my gosh! That is, like, the most awesome thing ever!"
"Oh really?" Scootaloo said, affecting an air of nonchalance. Then she brought her wings to a standstill without losing altitude. "Because, I thought this was at least twenty percent cooler."
The filly's expression grew into an ear-to-ear grin as she saw the realization dawn on Rainbow Dash's own face. The cyan pegasus wasn't considered fast just for her airspeed though, and her stunned expression rapidly evolved into one of pure glee. She hug tackled the filly, wrapping her forelegs around her sister and squeezing tightly, overjoyed to feel the warm embrace returned with equal vigor.
As the hug finally ended, Scootaloo looked up at her big sister. "So, would you maybe want to go flying with me sometime?" she said.
Rainbow Dash felt some liquid pride starting to build in the corners of her eyes. "I know I exaggerate a lot," she said. "And so sometimes the really important things I say aren't taken that seriously, you know?"
Scootaloo nodded.
"Right," Dash continued, wiping away the beginnings of a tear from her cheek. "So it's very important that you know I'm being absolutely sincere here when I say this, okay?"
Scootaloo nodded again, unsure what to expect.
Rainbow Dash leaned down to look the filly directly in the eyes. "Since our very first practice," she said, placing a forehoof on Scootaloo's shoulder for emphasis. "There is absolutely nothing I have ever wanted more than to go flying with you."
This time Scootaloo was the one initiating the tackle, her small forelegs wrapping around the neck of her big sister, strangling her with love, and drowning her in tears of joy.
"Besides," Rainbow said, attempting to lighten the mood after a very, very long hug. "You've got to show me how you do that hovering trick!"
"No no no," Scootaloo said. "You've got to do it gently. You're still over-correcting."
"Ugh, I'm trying, but—" Rainbow Dash was cut short as she again rolled unexpectedly on a poorly-positioned updraft and fell the couple of feet to the ground. The two had been flying and practicing together for several days, but Dash was still working hard to learn how to hover without using her wings.
Rainbow Dash picked herself up and shook the loose grass and dirt off her coat and wings. "I'm still not sure I'm understanding this."
"Sure you are," the filly assured her. "It just takes practice. You're just used to using your magic to go fast. You push and pull the air around you in big motions, and take care of the balance and subtle corrections using your wings. The trick is learning to balance by moving the airflow, rather than your wings."
"Right, I got that part, but..."
"Well then, see, you do understand it. You just have to try harder... or actually... less hard. Be subtle, gentle, patient."
Rainbow wasn't quite sure those words were even in her vocabulary, metaphorically speaking, but she couldn't let that stop her. After all, a filly had figured out how to do it... and from a book no less! If she had to put new words in her metaphorical vocabulary to master this, then so be it. She'd metaphorically read the metaphorical dictionary if she had to! Heck, she thought, she might even read the actual dictionary if it would help. With that in mind, she stretched her neck and wings, then dusted off again.
Okay, she thought to herself. Subtle. Gentle. Rainbow felt the air currents flowing around and under her as she hovered. She focused on the column of air that was keeping her aloft, feeling the higher pressures under her barrel, hooves, and wings. Like Scootaloo had instructed, Dash reduced the currents flowing beneath her wings, and strengthened the ones under her body to take the extra weight. Consciously, she resisted the instinct to keep flapping her wings, and brought them to a standstill. Both were still stretched out though, and each would twitch instinctually as she listed in one direction or another. She could also feel those same instincts pulling air currents to her wings with each twitch as well. Still though, she was halfway there. She just had to retrain those balancing instincts to shift the air under her body instead. The air had so much less effect that close to her center of mass though. She'd feel herself starting to tip slightly, try a corrective breeze like she'd use under a wing, then when it did nothing and she was leaning even further, she'd panic, overdo it and then find herself falling the opposite direction. It was a bit like balancing on top of a ball with only one hoof and no wings.
Dash was ready for it this time though. She'd fallen more times than she could count over the previous days, and she was going to get it right. She tried to relax, reminding herself not to overreact as she started to fold her wings. She felt a slight tilt to the left, and immediately shifted more pressure to that side of her body, resisting the urge to make it stronger when there was not an instant reaction. After a fractional second that seemed way longer in her mind, she realized the roll had stopped. Overjoyed at the progress, she forgot to balance things back out though, and was soon rolling the other way. Increasing pressure on the right was then done too quickly, so it wasn't equal between her head and tail, causing her to tilt backwards as well. Realizing she was losing it on two axes, Dash started to lose her focus on subtlety. While the lateral roll was corrected by a nearly-perfect differential, the rearward tilt was now rather exaggerated. She over-corrected by a fair margin, sending a strong—and quite shocking—puff of air underneath her tail and hind quarters.
At the unexpected sensation, Rainbow Dash's eyes went wide and her rear hooves slammed together, causing her to fall ignominiously to the ground yet again. Scootaloo, seeing the mare's tail blown high by the gust immediately before the fall, quickly put two and two together and fell to the ground laughing.
"Sorry Dash," Scootaloo said as she worked to control her laughter. "But if you'd seen the look on your face..."
Dash just rolled her eyes. She couldn't really be mad, as she knew she'd be laughing if the roles had been reversed. Still though, she figured that was enough hover practice for today. After waiting for Scootaloo to stop giggling, she suggested they go for some more "real" flying.
As they were soaring casually over the landscape a short time later, Scootaloo pulled up beside Dash. She'd been wanting to do this for several days now, but kept getting cold hooves every time she was about to ask.
"Hey, uh... Dash?" She said, trying to work up the courage.
"Yeah?" Rainbow said, turning to look at her as they both slowed a bit.
"Umm..." Scootaloo was about to back down again, but fought through the impulse and managed to finish. "Can we race?"
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. "Like, you and me?"
That's what Scootaloo had been afraid of. Dash wouldn't take her seriously, as there's no way she could be a real challenge for the speedster. Still though, she was determined to see this though, and said meekly, "Umm, yeah. You know, just for fun?"
For her part, Dash had been surprised because, over the past few days' flying with her young sister, she'd intentionally been going extra slow. She didn't want to risk humiliating or embarrassing the filly, especially with how new she was to flight. But a race though? She cared enough about the little pegasus that her ego wasn't an issue; she'd have no problem holding back and letting her win if that's what it took to let the youngster be happy. But Scootaloo wasn't dumb either, and had watched Dash practice for years. Would she know if her idol was holding back? Would that make it worse?
While Dash was pondering, Scootaloo added one simple word that broke the mental tie. "Please?"
"Yeah, sure thing, Scoots!" Rainbow said. "Name the course."
"Awesome! Okay, umm... straight line race, and let's finish at..." Scootaloo said, looking around for a good landmark. "How about that waterfall on the far shore of the lake?"
"That's pretty far," Rainbow said, realizing she could see the lake, but not the falls at this distance, though she knew it from memory of course. "You sure you're up for it?"
"Yeah, if nothing else, I'll get a lot of practice right? And I just want to go fast!"
"Heheh, I can appreciate that!"
Scootaloo gave a friendly but determined smile to her sister and friend.
"Okay, count down from 3!" Dash said, adjusting her speed to line up right beside the filly. "3... 2... 1... Go!"
The two pegasi put on massive bursts of speed, their former glide a virtual standstill by comparison. Dash slowed a tad after a few moments as she realized she had a slight lead. Scootaloo kept pushing harder though, and was soon catching up. As she did so, Rainbow accelerated, deciding that any thrown victory would look more realistic if she maintained a bit of a lead for now. She found herself soon having to pour on more speed though, as the filly was somehow still accelerating.
Scootaloo felt the air rushing through her fur, realizing that this was the sort of moment she'd dreamed of for years. She was determined not to let herself be distracted though. She knew Rainbow was certainly going to win a race like this, but wanted to push herself as much as she could, regardless. Like she'd just told Dash, at least it was good practice. More importantly, she'd get to see exactly what the other pegasus did from up close, and perhaps learn from that as well. The first thing she noticed was Dash's posture—head forward, neck in direct line with back and tail, forehooves out in front. It was of course, exactly what her reading in basic aerodynamics would suggest, but seeing it on another pony instead of abstract concepts made it a lot easier to imitate. As she concentrated on streamlining her form, she realized she could feel the turbulence reducing and her speed increasing.
As they raced faster and faster, Scootaloo began to notice other areas of turbulence around her body and limbs. Her mane and tail were big ones, the hair fluttering rapidly in the airflow. Her ears were also another big one, but after a couple of tries, she found a way to lay them down so they were mostly out of the way. There wasn't much she could do about her hindquarters, shoulders, and other joints though, and she was still trailing Dash by a fair bit. Scootaloo realized that a pony just physically couldn't fold into an ideal aerodynamic shape. But then inspiration struck. This wasn't about what a pony could do physically... this was magic! She couldn't move her body out of the way of the airflow, but she could move the air around her body!
With that in mind, Scootaloo started focusing on the air rushing past her, trying to map out in her mind how it would need to flow to minimize resistance. Once she figured that out, the trickier part was determining what magical adjustments she could make to achieve that. She started with the most obvious source of drag, directly in front of her. She concentrated on ripping the onrushing air apart before it reached her outstretched hooves, forming a cone of lower pressure directly around her hooves and head. It took her a couple of tries, as the sudden change in airflow kept throwing her off course. Once she got it though, she knew she was on to something. Suddenly it was much quieter, her ears, eyes, and cheeks no longer felt like they were being ripped away by the wind. She took the opportunity to glance briefly to the side, realizing that she'd actually just passed Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow realized she'd been daydreaming again. After the first minute or so of the race, she thought she'd paced the filly pretty well, maintaining her slight lead. But now, even though she knew she hadn't slowed, Scootaloo had just passed her. While she was still planning to let the filly win, she wanted to put on a good show, and picked up her pace again, aiming to slowly pass after a few moments. As she started to gain on the young flier, Dash saw her hit what looked like strong turbulence, the small pony being rocked side to side by unseen forces before recovering. Dash found this very odd, as she encountered nothing even resembling a crosswind or updraft herself. Dismissing it, she put on a bit more speed, finding she'd not been closing as quickly as she'd planned. Then she realized she was actually falling further behind, and really pushed it until she'd once again achieved a slight lead.
Scootaloo was feeling incredibly giddy as she looked down and saw the landscape flowing beneath her faster than she'd ever imagined. She'd had a couple more near-disasters as she'd refined the magically constrained airflow around her. The initial cone she'd formed kept things comfortable, but it had a larger frontal area than was ideal, as a pony wasn't exactly a cylinder. She'd narrowed the conic flow region down to just barely enclose her outstretched forelegs, flattening it slightly, and joined it with a partially elliptical dome which covered her head. As she'd made those adjustments though, the onrushing air had snagged her wings unexpectedly and almost thrown her out of her carefully constructed airflow. She'd managed to recover both times. Now, she was focusing on the wings themselves.
Initially, she'd found it easiest to fly with both wings out stretched and tilted so the undersides were mostly pointed behind her. This provided relatively large surfaces that she could bring a lot of air pressure against to use for thrust. At these higher speeds though, the added drag was causing problems. Quickly experimenting with a couple of different ideas, she discovered that sweeping them back while keeping them slightly away from her body formed pockets between her flank and wings where high pressure thrust could be focused, yet let the overall airflow from in front of her slide past with minimal resistance—provided, of course, she kept the rest of the currents in line with her plan. This part was becoming more and more difficult the further she refined the airflow. A blunt cone was pretty simple, taking more willpower than actual finesse. The more details she added to the streamlining though, the more concentration it required, and the harder it became to maintain all the subtle components in her mind and magic. Scootaloo was determined though, and the sheer thrill of speed drove her to keep pushing the envelope.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash was becoming increasingly confused. She'd once again fallen behind the filly, and was working really hard to catch up. She knew she still had a bit more speed she could bring out, but was pretty certain she could already beat at least a few of the Wonderbolts at the current pace. There was no way a filly—never mind one who only just learned how to fly—should be able to go anywhere near this speed. As she pulled up alongside Scootaloo again, she quickly glanced at the youngster, and even that tiny movement caused her to fall behind from the added drag. The orange filly didn't even seem to be trying however. While Dash felt her mane nearly being pulled out by the roots, and her entire face flapping like laundry in a hurricane, Scootaloo looked positively serene, only a brow furrowed in concentration suggesting otherwise. Then the filly accelerated again.
Scootaloo could barely spare a thought for how fast she was going. All her focus was on maintaining and improving the airflow around herself with hundreds of subtle magical adjustments to the natural aerodynamics. She'd narrowed the flow around her barrel and hindquarters fairly tight, and had a rough tail cone behind her, crudely rejoining the currents in her wake. That had given her a significant burst of speed, but she could sense there was still some major regions of turbulence behind her. Many of the paths the air took around her were different lengths, meaning they met up at different speeds and pressures. She tried adjusting the flow around her shoulders, finding that allowing slightly more drag there resulted in an improvement where that airflow rejoined behind her. Likewise, several adjustments that were possible around her rear hooves resulted in net gains when tried by themselves, but every time she tried to compound the improvements and use several at a time, it often made things worse instead of better. She eventually discovered several combinations that started to work though, gaining a small bit of speed with each one, and continued to search for more.
No way, Dash thought, seeing Scootaloo accelerate once more. That just... that can't be possible. She was falling behind yet again, and as she realized they were coming to the end of the race, her competitive nature started to kick in. She'd originally intended to let the filly win, but that was when she thought it wouldn't be a fair race. Now she realized that she might actually be racing the second fastest pegasus in Equestria. It didn't matter that it was a filly that'd just learned to fly a week or two ago, right? Blinking through the wind-induced tears, Rainbow Dash saw Scootaloo pulling away. Okay, she thought. That definitely means game on!
Scootaloo had successfully refined several more small bits of non-laminar airflow, when she'd been distracted by a strange new sensation. The cone in front of her hooves was sporadically becoming visible, a white mist or glow appearing at the boundaries. The bursts coincided with a loss of flow cohesion and subsequent drop in speed. At first she thought she'd merely lost focus in some small way, causing the failures, but a quick mental check let her sense everything was still holding together. There was actually some new phenomenon causing things to go awry each time she sped back up, something that wasn't there at lower speeds. Distracted from her refinements for a moment, she quickly noticed as Rainbow Dash passed her, and saw that the cyan pegasus had a similar white cone forming in front of her. It was then that she connected the dots. No way, she thought. Am I really going that fast?
Dumbfounded, Scootaloo gave up on trying to push through the new barrier, and instead just watched intently as Dash pushed past her. She'd seen this once before from the ground, but now she had a front row seat. It happened in a matter of seconds, but to the young pegasus, everything was in slow motion. Dash had tears being ripped from her eyes by the sheer speed, her mane, tail, and even lips rippling in the onrushing air. A cone of white condensation was forming in front of the pegasus, the angle narrowing as her speed increased, taking her a short way in front of the younger flier. Dash strained and fought, her outstretched hooves inching closer and closer to the barrier. Then it happened. The barrier was breached, the resulting discontinuity instantly condensing water vapor and excess thaumaturgical energy in an expanding torus of extreme pressure differential, which in turn refracted sunlight into its constituent spectrum.
Scootaloo's eyes were wide in awe as the Sonic Rainboom exploded right before her. In the fraction of a second it took for her to reach the edge of the shockwave, she spent most of it in pure wonder. Only in the last fraction of that fraction did she finally start to realize what kind of effect the phenomenon might have on her own trajectory.
----
"Scootaloo!" Dash yelled, circling above the lake. After she'd pulled off the rainboom, the pegasus had sailed under the destination waterfall, and then done a quick victory lap around the mountain as she bled off speed and the excess magic that went with it. It was only as she circled back that she realized Scootaloo was nowhere to be seen. "Scootaloo, where are you?" she yelled again, starting to panic. Why had she done that? She could've just let the filly win like she planned, but instead she'd gone and practically blasted her out of the sky with a point-blank rainboom! "Come on squirt, answer me!"
"Dash!" a faint voice called from somewhere below. Dash turned to track it.
"Scoots?"
"Down here!" This time she saw it. In the lake itself, just off shore, she saw the filly paddling in the water. She flew down and landed just as Scootaloo was slogging her way through some high cattails to the shore.
"Oh my gosh, Scootaloo! I'm so sorry!" Rainbow said, as the drenched filly pulled her last hoof from the mud with a loud squick.
"Wow Dash, that was awesome!" Scootaloo gushed. "I was right beside you when I realized what you were about to do, and I saw the air condensing in front of you then you were like, zoom! Right past me!" The filly mimed the flyby with her hooves. "Suddenly, there was this huge rainbow wave coming at me and before I could even think about it, it knocked me tumbling out of the sky. Next thing I know, I'm crashing in the lake!"
"I'm so, so sorry about that," Dash said, the panicked apologies tumbling out as fast as she could speak. "I don't know what I was thinking. I was going to let you win and everything!"
"Yeah it was..." the youngster began, before her brain caught up with her ears and brought a frown to her face. "Wait. You were going to let me win?"
Rainbow felt her cheeks flush. "Umm... Well, I was. Obviously I didn't, though."
"Obviously," Scootaloo deadpanned, before turning her head and trying to shake the lake water out of her ear.
"But you're okay?"
"Yeah," the filly said, turning to look at the bottom of one of her rear hooves. "But I think I've got a frog in my frog. Go on, shoo!" She said, shaking the hoof and dislodging a small amphibian. "Still though, I can't believe you were going to let me win."
"Yeah, sorry about that. I just didn't want you to feel bad."
"You know I was never expecting to actually win, right Dash?"
Of course that made sense, Rainbow knew that Scootaloo wasn't dumb, and knowing how amazingly fast Rainbow could go was pretty much gospel for the filly. "But then why race?"
"Just to say I'd raced Rainbow Dash." Scootaloo hung her head, a bit embarrassed by the admission. "How many ponies can say they got to even lose a race against the fastest pony in Equestria?"
"Heh, yeah, I guess that is a rare honor," Rainbow said, bringing her false ego out for a spin.
"So what made you change your mind... about losing I mean?"
"Honestly?"
"Yeah, really. Why?"
"I'm not quite sure. I think... I think it was easy enough to lose when I knew I could win. By the end though... I mean, for crying out loud squirt, you were pushing the sound barrier right there with me! Suddenly I didn't know if I could actually win or not."
"And you just had to win?"
"No! Well... not exactly. Okay, yeah, I mean, I wanted to win, but it was more like I needed to see if I even could. For all I knew, you were gonna find yet another burst of speed and beat me still! I could live with that, but not if I hadn't actually tried my hardest, you know?"
"Yeah, I do," Scootaloo admitted, knowing how many times her own failures were only assuaged because she knew she'd at least given it her all.
"So can you forgive me?"
The filly smiled, "Yeah, just don't do it again."
"Deal!" Rainbow said, stretching out her hoof to have it bumped by Scootaloo. With that behind them, Dash continued. "So what the hay happened back there anyway? You were matching my speed the whole way, but then you just lost it at the barrier."
"Yeah, I don't know," the filly said. "I figured out how to streamline the airflow around me, and was getting better and better at it. Then, blam! It's like everything I thought I'd figured out just changed. The air started behaving totally differently at that speed, and every little thing I tried nearly made me lose it."
"Heheh, yup! That's how the barrier is. Very few ponies can even get going that fast in the first place. Every one of them that did said kinda the same thing. It's totally different than flying at slower speeds."
"But how did you get through it then?"
"Ugh, you're not gonna like the answer."
"Come on, Dash, tell me."
"That's why you won't like it... Like I said that night at Twilight's, I don't know how I do it. I just try harder. Somehow I was able to push through."
"Yeah, you're right, that's not much help. What's it like once you get through, though?"
"Oh wow, squirt. It's awesome! Soon as you get through, everything smooths out again, and you can relax—just a bit, but still it feels amazing after the effort to punch through. Then you can keep going even faster, though it's hard to keep up for too long."
Scootaloo sighed. "That sounds amazing. I gotta figure out how to get there!"
"I'm sure you will."
"Really?"
"Yeah, if any other pony can get through it, it's definitely going to be you."
"How are you so sure?"
"How are you not? Look squirt, I'm being dead serious again. What you just pulled off up there was nothing short of incredible! You didn't even know how to fly two months ago, yet you went from 'Oh, not bad for a filly' to 'Faster than most of the Wonderbolts' in the course of a ten minute race. Never mind that wingless hover thing you figured out."
"Well, when you put it like that..."
"No, seriously, Scootaloo, listen to me." Rainbow Dash leaned down toward the filly, smiling warmly, despite the tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. "When you said you wanted to race me just to say you'd done it? Well, I think maybe it's a good thing I won today, because I honestly don't know that I'll be able to do it much longer. You're gonna crack the barrier, and I've no doubt that what's beyond will be even more of a cakewalk for you. When that happens, well... I won't be able to say I'm the fastest pony in Equestria anymore, but at least I'll still be the only pony that ever beat her in a race!"
Scootaloo was wide-eyed in shock at the realization she was destroying the dreams of the pony she'd idolized most. "Dash," She mumbled. "I never meant to... I mean, I'm not trying to..."
"Hey," Rainbow interrupted with a playful hoof to the shoulder. "Cheer up, squirt! It's a good thing! Just make sure you mention me a few times when you're accepting all the awards, okay?"
"Oh, Dash," The filly said, leaping to hug her sister again. "I'd never, ever forget you!"
"I know, Scoots. I know."
----
Later that evening, Twilight was startled from her light reading—a twelve-hundred page dissertation on second era griffon economics—by a loud knocking at her door. Opening it, she wasn't surprised to find Scootaloo, as the filly had been coming by for regular tutoring sessions in calculus, aerodynamics, and basic magic theory. The matted coat and mud-caked legs, on the other hoof, were slightly more of a shock, but by no means the worst she'd seen from members of the crusading trio. Before she could even say hello, the young pegasus stepped through the door.
"Twilight," Scootaloo said, her voice full of urgency. "I need books!"
"What kind of books?"
"Everything you've got on... I think Able Achievement called it 'supersonic' airflow."
Twilight thought for a moment. She'd been reading up on a lot of aerodynamics and related physics as she tutored Scootaloo. There wasn't much on supersonic flow, as it was still mostly theoretical. There'd been some lab experiments, and a fair bit of mathematical conjecture, but Rainbow Dash herself had been the first—and so far only—pony to actually fly at those speeds. Twilight did have a personal suspicion that the princesses may actually be able to fly that fast, but no pony had ever witnessed it, and the princesses sure weren't admitting to it. As such, she omitted that bit of speculation as she explained to the filly how little information there was on the subject.
"Well then," Scootaloo said. "I need everything you do have on it, and anything you can think of that's related. I'm just gonna have to figure it out myself."
"Now that's very admirable, Scootaloo, but—"
"Oh, not this again," Scootaloo said, rolling her eyes with a huff.
"What? No... Argh!" Twilight fumbled out. "No, I wasn't going to say you're too dumb or anything, but I don't want to see you set yourself up for disappointment either. You're not just talking about learning something, you're talking about trying to formulate new theories and study entirely new phenomena. That's almost impossible to do without research."
"Umm, okay," Scootaloo said. "So I'll have to do research then."
"No, I mean original research. Not looking stuff up, but studying things in the real world as they happen."
"Yeah, that's the plan."
Twilight sighed before trying again. "Scootaloo," she said. "What I'm saying is that, to study trans-sonic and supersonic aerodynamics, you'd have to actually be going pretty close to the sound barrier, and Rainbow Dash..."
"Yeah, I could almost touch it today."
"...is the only pony I know that can even get close to that speed, but she's not the most, well, 'scientifically minded' pony to rely on for observational data. As such... Wait, you what?"
Scootaloo smiled, starting to understand why Dash and Pinkie always loved to prank the librarian. Not only was she often several seconds behind, but the look on her face when she was surprised or confused was just priceless.
"I said, I was flying practically at the sound barrier today. I could almost reach out and touch it."
Yup, the filly thought. Priceless!
----
"Ya know, Scootaloo, it wouldn't hurt to put down the books at least for a few minutes, right?"
"No can do, AB. I'm on a roll."
Apple Bloom sighed. She was glad her friend had finally conquered her dream of flying, but the adventures of the Cutie Mark Crusaders were happening a lot less often now that their most adventurous member had her nose buried in a book all the time. The discovery they'd made about their collective nature seemed to be paying off a lot more for the pegasus, she thought. While, sure, it was cool to be able to grow flowers and connect with all the earth around her, the novelty was starting to wear off. She still practiced of course, especially in idle moments on the farm, and she'd even gotten some pretty amazing decorative trees and bushes out of it. Most recently, she'd managed to rapidly grow an apple, orange, and cherry tree at the same time, causing them to weave and braid through each other as they grew. The end result was a single "tree" with a braided trunk, bearing three kinds of fruit out on the edge of the farm. It was cool and all, but there wasn't much more she could think of to challenge her talent. Certainly nothing like what Scootaloo had in trying to crack the sound barrier.
"Hey Apple Bloom," Sweetie Belle said, idly juggling a dozen random objects from around the clubhouse with her magic while she lay on the floor. "Want to go to Sugarcube Corner? I could go for a milkshake right now."
Not exactly the adventure she'd been looking for, but a shake did sound pretty good. "Yeah!" Apple Bloom said. "What about you, Scoots? Wanna get a shake?"
Scootaloo looked up from her book, then shook her head. "No, you guys go on ahead. I think I'm pretty close to figuring this bit out."
Sweetie and Apple Bloom shared a look with each other, before shrugging. "Okay," Apple Bloom said. "Ya know where to find us if ya change yer mind."
With that, the two fillies trotted out the door, leaving the pegasus to her studies.
"Ya know," Apple Bloom said, turning to Sweetie as the two made their way across the farm. "I'm kinda worried about Scoots. I mean, she never puts down those books at all."
"Yeah," Sweetie said. "But I think maybe it's good for her. She's learning a lot, and that can't be a bad thing."
Apple Bloom sighed. "Yeah, I guess yer right. It's just... I kinda miss the old Scootaloo. I mean, we haven't crashed into nothin' or even destroyed anything in forever!"
"You really miss getting scraped up and bruised all the time?"
Apple Bloom laughed a bit at that. "Well, when ya put it that way. But it's just... I dunno. I think I'm just bored."
"Really?" Sweetie said, her tone of concern genuinely strong.
"Yeah, I mean... when we found out we were all special, well... it was scary at first, but then I thought this was gonna be awesome. And sure, I don't think I'd ever felt as good as that day I showed up Diamond and Silver by regrowin' those flowers. But since then, it just seems so... well, normal I guess. Every month that goes by just makes it feel like, so what, I can grow flowers and fancy trees and stuff. Not like that's exactly exciting, or much use save for farmin'. Ain't nothing else I can think of to do with it."
"I'm sorry, Bloom," Sweetie said, leaning over to nuzzle her friend as they walked. "I didn't know you were feeling sad."
"Well, it ain't exactly sad, just... Well what about you? I see ya juggling things and all those other tricks. Ya having fun with it still?"
"Yeah, some of it's still fun sometimes. For the most part, it's just something that's now a part of me though. I'm not quite sure how to explain it. Even the stuff that should really make me freak out, like when I first figured out I could unhinge my joints, or that I didn't need to breathe. That's big stuff, but it just somehow felt like it made sense. I'm still learning new things I can do all the time, but I don't think it's exciting for me in the same way it is for Scootaloo. I just decide to try something, and I can usually do it pretty easily."
"So Scootaloo is working really hard to do something, you can do anything without trying, and I have nothing left to do."
"Oh come on," Sweetie said, bumping her friend with a shoulder. "It's not that bad! What all did you have to do before you found out you were the most magical earth pony ever?"
Apple Bloom frowned at that. "I ain't even an earth pony."
"Close enough and you know it! All that's changed is that now you can do something extra you couldn't before, right? You won't have to worry about the farm so much, as you know you'll be the best at that, so you can spend extra time doing whatever else you want!"
Apple Bloom wasn't quite in a mood to smile, but she had to admit that Sweetie had a point. It wasn't like she'd lost anything by finding out she was a magical golem. Everything else in her life was still the same, so there's no reason she should be less happy than before the revelation. "But if that's true," she said. "Then why am I feelin' so down?"
"You know what will fix that?"
"What?"
Sweetie grinned, and then there was a loud pop. Before she could blink, Apple Bloom found that Pinkie Pie was in her face with an answering cry of, "Milkshakes!" and slamming two of said answer onto the table.
Getting her bearings, Apple Bloom found that she was now seated in a booth in Sugarcube Corner, directly across the table from Sweetie Belle, and two milkshakes sat before them, delivered by the aforementioned pink mare. Looking up, Apple Bloom could see Sweetie still grinning, which caused her to frown once again.
"Sorry, please don't be mad," the unicorn said, her grin disappearing in a flush of shame. "Twilight taught me how to teleport yesterday, and I've been wanting to show it off."
Closing her eyes, Apple Bloom sighed and allowed herself to smile. It was hard to stay mad at Sweetie, and even harder when surrounded by the delicious smells of baked goods. She knew her friend only meant to cheer her up.
"Naw, it's okay," she said, taking a sip of milkshake before continuing. "I really was kinda tired of walkin' anyway."
Sweetie smiled and seemed to relax at this, and the two fillies spent the next hour fueling a sugar rush while chatting about much more mundane things before heading back to the clubhouse.
When they got there, they found Scootaloo was gone, but—at least as far as they could tell—all her beloved math and science books were still there.
Rainbow Dash awoke from her nap to find Scootaloo knocking at her door.
"Oh hey, kiddo, what's up?"
"Hi Dash, umm... " the filly said, her front hooves nervously stepping in place. "Would you, you know... umm... be up for a race?"
Dash looked at the smiling little pegasus. "You figured something out, didn't you?"
Scootaloo laughed nervously. "Yeah, kinda."
"How, 'kinda' are we talking about here?"
"Like... a lotta kinda?"
Rainbow chuckled. "Okay, sure thing, squirt. Just gimme a minute to get ready."
"Yeah, sure thing, Dash."
Rainbow invited the filly inside while she went to quickly wash up. She'd known this day was coming ever since that crazy race they'd had a few months prior. She'd been flying with Scootaloo a fair bit in the interim, but they'd had no further races or any attempts at true speed. Mostly, it'd been hanging out as sisters—which is all Dash really wanted anyway—but she suspected the youngster had been practicing elsewhere on her own to prepare. Dash had also talked to Twilight, who'd reported that Scootaloo was really quite a prodigy when it came to physics and the related stuff, though apparently her grades in other subjects were only just above passing. Dash had promised Twilight that she'd try to talk the filly into paying at least a little attention to other studies at some point. For now though, that could wait.
After a quick shower to wake herself up, Rainbow returned to the main room and an overly eager filly. "Ready to go?" Scootaloo said.
"Patience there, squirt. I need a snack."
With that, Rainbow headed to the kitchen and poured a bowl of cereal. Slowly munching on it while Scootaloo watched, she wondered just what the filly might have discovered to get her so excited. Oh, she knew Scootaloo probably figured out how to get through the sonic barrier, but Dash suspected the filly hadn't stopped there.
"Ready to go yet?" Scootaloo said as Rainbow placed the last bite in her mouth.
"Almost. Just gotta drink some water first. Hydration is important, you know."
Scootaloo just stared as Rainbow slowly sipped a glass of water. When it was finally empty, the filly piped up. "How about now? Can we go yet?"
Rainbow tussled Scootaloo's mane with one hoof while she set the glass in the sink. "Yeah, let's step outside."
As Rainbow casually walked toward the door, Scootaloo rushed past her and was already hovering outside when the older pegasus exited the house.
"Okay, so I'm thinking straight from here to the peak of Canterlot Mountain!" the filly said.
"Hang on there, just gotta stretch first," Dash said, as she slowly began to extend and flex one wing, then the other.
"Ugh," Scootaloo said, dropping down to sit on the cloud while Dash continued her regimen. After a few minutes, as she saw Dash start to repeat the same stretches for a third time, she couldn't take it any longer. "Come on Dash, why are you stalling like this?"
Rainbow smiled. "What? Can't a mare enjoy her last few minutes as the world's fastest flier?"
Scootaloo's face went blank at that. She kept forgetting that, in pursuing her own dream, she was, effectively, stealing it from her big sister. And while Rainbow had assured her repeatedly that it was the way things should be, and that she didn't mind, Scootaloo knew that deep down it had to hurt her. "I'm sorry, Dash," she said. "We can... we can do this some other day if you want."
"No, it's fine," Rainbow said, finishing her stretches. "If you say you're ready today, then today it is."
"Are you sure? I mean, I know how important it is to you..."
"Come here, squirt," Dash said, pulling the filly in close with a wing. "Yeah, okay. Being fast is important to me. A few years ago, it was the most important thing to me, even. But since then, I've found so many things that are better."
"Like what?" Scootaloo said, looking up from beneath Dash's wing.
"Well, loyalty, for one. Standing by my friends, helping them where I can. And those friends taught me so much more, too. How important it is to be kind, and care for other ponies, even ones you don't like. To always be generous, and never put yourself first. To be honest, and faithful to your word. To smile, and more importantly, to help others be happy. And of course, that books actually are pretty cool." Dash's tone took on a lighter note as she continued. "And that's just the sappy stuff! Never mind how important it is to protect Equestria from all the bad guys that keep popping up, or taking care of Tank, or out-pranking Pinkie."
Scootaloo giggled at that.
"And of course," Dash continued. "There's helping my little sister learn to fly."
"Aww, Dash..." Scootaloo said, realizing it was getting sappy again.
"I'm serious, Scoots. I've said it before and I'll say it again. You are important to me. Way more important than being the fastest flier. So yeah, if you beat me today, I'll be happy for you, really. You just gotta promise me one thing."
"Yeah," Scootaloo said, remembering. "I won't forget to mention you when I get awards."
"Heh, no, not that," Rainbow said, smiling. "What I'm trying to say is that you can be proud of being fast. It can be important to you. But don't let it be the most important thing. Once you're the fastest flier in Equestria, promise me you won't let it become more important than all that stuff I mentioned—even if it is sappy—okay?"
"I promise, Dash," Scootaloo said, and began making the motions. "Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye."
"All right then," Dash said, letting a large, determined grin spread across her face. "Let's race!"
The two leapt into the air.
----
The race started off as a fairly dead heat between the two pegasi. Scootaloo had been practicing a lot, and had honed her subsonic streamlining quite well. Dash, determined to give the race her all from the get go, slowly gained a lead after a couple of minutes of solid effort. Streaking toward Canterlot, both racers kept their speed a bit shy of the sonic barrier... at least at first. Rainbow knew from experience that once you started pushing close to those speeds, it took a lot more energy, and it usually was best to save a final burst for the end of the race.
In a normal race, she'd probably wait until the last third of it to go into the trans-sonic range and beyond. Of course, in a normal race, there was no race beyond the barrier, as no other pony could keep up once she went there. Of course, this wasn't a normal race, and she had every suspicion the filly she was up against had no intention of pacing herself. As Scootaloo caught up with her a moment later, Dash knew the real race was about to begin.
Scootaloo moved first, deciding she was close enough to the barrier to transition to supersonic. In her studies and trial runs, she'd finally discovered the compressibility that created the shockwaves and unstable airflow at supersonic speeds. She'd gone through scores and scores of theories about how to get around or through the effects, and spent dozens of trials testing them out. Each trial almost always ended with her so exhausted she could barely glide back to the ground afterwards, but after months of testing, she'd finally found a theory that seemed to match the test results. From that theory, she'd worked out a mathematical model that suggested an ideal shape for avoiding the supersonic shockwaves. It was a nearly impossible shape compared to a pegasus, or indeed, anything with actual wings. However, that meant nothing when she could simply use magic to force the airflow around her to follow that same pattern, even without a physical object present to define it.
As she began to reshape the airflow, Scootaloo saw Rainbow Dash take the lead. That was okay though, she'd expected that to happen. The shape she needed for supersonic flight was basically a very elongated hoofball—points at both ends, curving in a mathematically precise way to a wider center. In that center is where her own body would fit, hooves stretched out fore and aft as far as she could get them, and wings held as tightly as possible against her flanks. The smaller the space she could occupy physically, the narrower the overall volume could be, and the faster she could go... in theory. The downside was that such a shape was less than ideal for flight at subsonic speeds, meaning that she couldn't use it for the whole race. As such, she now had to switch from her more contoured and pony-shaped bubble of airflow to the supersonic cigar. That transition period had meant a temporary loss of speed, and allowed Dash to pass her.
Transition complete, Scootaloo put all the magical energy she could into building two small, extremely intense zones of high pressure directly behind each rear hoof, using these as her sole source of acceleration. Her knees quickly began to ache under the high forces she was applying. Thankfully, she'd spent a lot of time upright on her scooter, so she was more used to having weight on her legs at that angle than most ponies. The high acceleration did its job though, and, looking ahead, she saw she was rapidly closing on Dash.
Rainbow Dash was giving it her all. She'd been honest when she told Scootaloo that she couldn't tolerate the idea of not trying her hardest in their previous race. To that end, she'd actually been working out more often than usual in the months since, knowing that when the day came, she'd want to really be able to know that she gave it everything she could. In that sense, it had worked. She found that she was now pushing against the sonic barrier and getting there had taken much less of her energy than she was used to. The hard part was what she was working on now though, that last push to break though.
As she strained and reached for every extra morsel of speed, Dash saw her opponent come into view out of the corner of her eye. She risked a very, very quick glance to the side, and noticed that there was almost no visible vapor cone forming in front of Scootaloo, while in front of her own hooves, there was practically an entire wall of white condensation. As she continued her own push, Dash saw the filly slip further and further into the lead, now obviously past the barrier but without any sort of rainboom or shockwave to indicate that she'd done so. Rainbow Dash really, really wanted to know how the young pegasus had done it, but realized she could dwell on that later. For now, she decided to resort to her old standby, and simply started to try harder.
Scootaloo was pretty sure she was entirely supersonic now, as she'd passed Dash at a decent clip, and there'd been a very clear cone in front of her opponent at the time. That meant her design had worked. The long airflow she'd contrived had punched through the barrier with only the slightest ripples of condensation showing out at the far tip. In that way, it felt much less like the barrier she'd confronted before, and more like she was in a needle, easily passing through a sheet of fabric. Strangely, it was like Dash had said, it actually got easier on the other side. Of course, her calculations had suggested the same thing, but to actually feel the effort lessen was a much more visceral experience than just seeing the numbers. There was a race to win though, and... well, those same numbers said she could go a lot faster still, especially if she went higher. With that in mind, she redoubled her efforts at thrust, and aimed high into the blue.
Behind the soaring filly, Rainbow Dash punched through the barrier herself. Relieved to be on the other side, and to once again see clearly in front of her now that the condensation cone was gone, she put on her own burst of speed, hoping to perhaps catch Scootaloo still. When she looked ahead to locate her though, she couldn't see the filly anywhere between her and the castle-bearing mountain ahead. For a brief second, she was worried the young pegasus might've been knocked out of the sky again, but quickly realized that couldn't have happened. For one, the filly was well ahead of her at last glance, and secondly, ahead of the barrier as well. That meant she was supersonic and well clear of any effects Dash's trailing rainboom might've had.
Turning her thoughts back toward the race, Dash could only try harder, pouring all her remaining energy into gaining even more speed. She'd never held supersonic flight for this long before. Normally, the rainboom was the goal, and once she'd achieved it, the supersonic glide afterwards was usually just to bleed off speed, and maybe do a little showboating, since any race had already been won. Of course, that was before there'd been another pegasus that could even keep up, much less keep a race going well into the supersonic. Now, she found she was apparently far enough behind that she couldn't even see her opponent.
Scootaloo was still accelerating, pleased to find that her theory about going higher was starting to pan out. As the ambient air pressure decreased, so did the drag. It was becoming hard to keep track of her true speed though, only her pegasus magic allowed her to accurately sense the airspeed. To all her other senses, it felt like she was going impossibly slow. With the lowering air pressures, the noise and wind from the slight turbulence had lessened, contributing to a feeling of sluggishness. High above the clouds by now, there was nothing nearby to provide a visual sense of speed. Likewise, the high angle she was flying at meant that she mostly saw unchanging sky, but even when she glanced downward, the ground was so far away that it seemed to barely move beneath her.
As she flew higher and faster, Scootaloo saw that the sky was beginning to change after all. Slowly at first, then faster, she watched it fade from blue into black. The beauty of it was overwhelming, the air itself thinning out and lending everything a sharper, crisper definition. The sunlight too was changing, the soft yellow warmth every pony was familiar with on the ground becoming a clear, brilliantly actinic spotlight up here in the heavens, glinting off faraway lakes, rivers, and glaciers. Long shadows flowed through distant cloud tops on the curving horizon, and left gorgeous mottled patches on the land far below. Glancing skyward again, she saw the stars begin to come out, and the little orange pegasus could only smile in joy as she soared effortlessly, feeling herself float weightlessly, as though the sky was an infinite ocean she was lazily drifting upon.
Then the panic started to set in. The drifting wasn't an illusion. She was actually losing control and quickly reached out with her magic to grasp the air beyond her bubble to change course, but found almost nothing to manipulate. The air had been thinning exponentially as she gained altitude, and all the while her speed itself was increasing as well. Now it was too thin to get purchase on, and momentum alone was carrying her higher still. Forcing down her fear, Scootaloo thought quickly, replaying in her mind the last minute of sensations she'd ignored while enraptured by scenery. From that, she realized two things: first, that the small, cigar-shaped bubble of air she'd been holding around herself was now the only thing letting her still breathe; second, that at the angle and speed she was going, gravity should still win and pull her back down into thicker air before long. As such, all she needed to do was wait calmly and try not to breathe too much. To that end, she pulled the remaining air into a sphere, and allowed herself to relax her wings and legs into a more natural posture. Panic continued to knock at the back of her mind, but Scootaloo forced herself to breathe calmly and focus on the view.
As Scootaloo drifted along the edge of space, her body slowly spun to face what had previously been behind her as she flew. There, shining in glory, brilliance, and clarity like she'd never seen, was the moon. The filly smiled, reminded of the wonderful princess who'd helped her through her worst nightmares, and was, of course, watching over her still. How could she panic when she could see both sun and moon shining their light upon her here? There was no place for it amongst this beauty. She was seeing Equestria as it had perhaps never been glimpsed before, and from way up here as she kissed the heavens, it was even more beautiful than she'd ever imagined. Far below, she thought she could even see the faintest hint of a rainbow, headed directly toward a mountain that could only be that of Canterlot. Oh no, Scootaloo thought. The race!
Rainbow Dash was soaring over the plains, faster than she'd ever gone before. She still had no idea where her opponent was, but even if she'd already completed the course, Dash still planned to set a personal best on this run. She could see the mountain looming in front of her, the castle and associated city hanging impossibly cantilevered off to one side. Her goal was the ice-covered peak though, and she was leading a rainbow-colored trail directly for it. Her rapid approach this close to the capital might give the guards a bit of a fright, but... well, she was best friends with one princess, had saved another from a thousand year nightmare, and was pretty sure she could manage to at least apologize profusely to a third if needed. Restricted airspace my hoof, she thought, speeding on toward her target.
High above, Scootaloo felt gravity returning. Well, not gravity—she knew that never left—but acceleration. Her bubble of breathable air was now hitting enough atmosphere to start slowing her down. More importantly, it was enough to grip and manipulate with her pegasus magic. Doing so, she righted herself, and transitioned the airflow to form another supersonic bubble around her, before aiming directly for the peak above Canterlot and diving. As the air pressure rapidly spiked, she found she could no longer maintain any forward acceleration. The force required to overcome the resistance was simply beyond her at that point. Instead, the rapidly flowing air was starting to heat up significantly as her little bubble forced its way through. She'd read about this effect some, and had come up with a few ideas on how to put it to effective use in flight. She'd not at all been expecting to need it today however. But then again, she hadn't been expecting to drift weightlessly over the curve of the planet either.
Rainbow Dash looked ahead, and saw she was getting close to the finish. The peak was now definitely above her, not just distant and abstract. She pulled up, and started to gain altitude, aiming for the minimal slope that would let her arrive and land on the peak in the least time. High above the peak, she saw something bright in the sky. For a second, it looked like a shooting star, even though it was only mid-afternoon. Then it started to get brighter.
Scootaloo was in it now. The air compressing in front of her was actually burning as far as she could tell. She'd have to ask Twilight about that later, but the evidence was clear. It was glowing bright red and yellow, obscuring her vision. She was very glad that her magic let her keep the high pressure zones far enough from her body that she only felt like she was in an oven, rather than a volcano. It was still very, very hot though, and she knew she couldn't survive that much longer. Recalling what she could about the less make-me-go-faster parts of physics, she tried to think of a solution. If she'd been a unicorn, a frost spell or some such would've come in useful, but all she could manipulate was air and water, and there wasn't nearly enough moisture to quench that kind of heat. No, the only option was to spread it out. To that end, she flared the front end of her encasing bubble, making a large, blunt teardrop shape out of it. The resulting increase in drag made the fire glow brighter, but over a much larger area, reducing the amount of heat that was directly broiling her own face and hooves. Following up on that, she cycled trailing air in and out of the bubble zone to vent heat as fast as she could without wrecking the enclosure entirely. The rapid deceleration threatened to pull her wolf teeth right out of her jaw, but she put all her effort into maintaining her magic and held on.
The glimmering ember Dash had seen falling suddenly erupted into a massive fireball. She'd heard of meteors before, and Twilight had explained that shooting stars were basically the same thing, just that ponies tended to say "meteor" when they meant one that was really big and bright. This was huge though, and nearly as bright as the sun. It also appeared to be heading directly for the peak of the mountain. That couldn't be a coincidence, Dash realized.
The flaring had worked. Scootaloo found she'd quickly bled off most of her speed without flash frying herself. She was still going several times faster than supersonic, but it was back into a range where the air wasn't tearing itself apart around her, and probably safe if she switched back to the cigar profile. She did, and was relieved to finally be back into something resembling normal flight. Looking around, she saw she'd actually been several miles off course, and was now approaching the peak on a path that would directly overfly Canterlot. Well, that was okay, she could slow down and circle. Then she saw a rainbow streak approaching the peak from some distance off to her right. Rainbow Dash! The other pegasus had maintained low-altitude, supersonic flight this whole time. The effort to do that in such high density air must've been incredible! More importantly, she realized, the race was still on!
Thankfully, Dash's "try harder" approach meant a lot of her magic output was unfocused and raw, leaving a signature rainbow trail behind her as it dispersed into the air. That trail was easy to follow at a distance, and Scootaloo used it to determine how long it would take her rival to reach the peak. Not long, was the answer. Maybe two minutes at most. Scootaloo knew she was still going several times faster though, even if she was further away. What that meant was that she had to keep that speed as long as she could, and dump it rapidly so she could land first. She could just flare her aeroshell again, which, by her estimate, would put her there at least thirty seconds before Dash arrived. She realized that plan lacked something though. Yes, she thought, it lacked showmareship. It lacked color. It lacked style. But what it really lacked was awesomeness. Then an idea came to her. Oh yes, she thought, a wild grin spreading across her muzzle. This will be at least twenty percent cooler!
Rainbow Dash raced on. The peak was in sight, only a minute away or less. The bright meteor she'd seen had faded, but she was certain it could only be Scootaloo. She had no idea how, of course, but Twilight had once mentioned something she called "narrative coincidence" to explain those things you just knew had to be true, even when you had no reason or logic to explain it. This was definitely one of those. As she drew closer to the peak, she could tell that it was empty. Fresh, white snow was all that was visible at the top, no sign anywhere of Scootaloo, meaning the filly had to still be racing too. Then a flash to her left caught Rainbow's attention.
Scootaloo waited until a full second after what she'd previously determined was the last possible second to start, then started. The aeroshell flared in front of her for a brief second, then collapsed back to a point. Then again. And again. Scootaloo was basically pulsing the airflow in front of her, alternating rapidly between the sleek supersonic shape, and the wide, aerobraking shield. Each time she did so, she released a small, calculated bit of raw magic into the resulting shockwave vortices. The resulting deceleration wasn't quite as fast as if she'd just flared and held it, but combined with the magic bursts, it was much more beautiful.
Dash looked in the direction of the flash and saw an expanding shockwave torus, much like her own rainboom. A fractional second afterwards, another one appeared, and then another. The result was an amazing conic trail of prismatic tori, the focus of which was headed directly at Canterlot peak.
It was working, Scootaloo thought, slightly surprised herself. She saw Dash approaching, but knew she'd get there first, if only by seconds. More importantly though, she'd done something awesome on the way, even if it had cost her a slight bit of time. The pulsing flares had slowed her back into the sub-sonic range and now all she had to do was set down and claim victory. As the peak approached, she prepared to land. Most pegasi usually slowed to a hover, then set down, but Scootaloo wasn't sure she had the time to spare at this point. Instead, she brought her legs down beneath her, ready to land at a gallop.
Looking ahead, Rainbow could see Scootaloo clearly now. The filly had indeed been the fireball and the source of the odd rainboom trail. Dash saw now there was no way she could win at this point. The filly was coming in fast for the peak, and Dash wondered how she planned to slow in time to land. With all the other tricks she'd pulled today though, Dash didn't doubt for a second that Scootaloo had at least one more ready to go. At this point she was just curious to see what it was.
Scootaloo did not actually have a trick prepared for landing however. Rather, she'd simply never spent much time around deep snow, and thus had no idea that a pony should treat it differently than solid ground. The results, at least in the opinion of Rainbow Dash, were apparently hilarious.
"Oh wow, Scoots!" Dash said, laughing heartily as she touched down a few feet away from the half buried and upside-down filly. "That... that was classic!"
Trying to right herself in the deep snow, Scootaloo couldn't find the breath to reply.
"Here," Dash said, reaching down into the snowy quagmire and grabbing a flailing orange hoof. "Lemme help."
"Gah!" Scootaloo shrieked, snorting snow and ice out of her nose as Rainbow dangled her by a rear leg. "What happened?"
"That," Dash said, as she righted the filly and placed her gently on a more solid patch of glacier. "Is what I'd like to know."
"As would I," said a third voice.
Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo both turned quickly to find Princess Celestia standing on the snow behind them.
Turning toward the younger pegasus, the princess said "Twilight told me the power she sensed in you and your friends, but that was still quite an impressive display you put on there, my little pony."
Having no idea how to respond, Scootaloo took a guess. "Thanks?"
Celestia laughed gently. "Would you believe the visiting Caribou ambassador is now nearly convinced that Ragnarok is upon him?"
"Rag-no-what?" Dash asked.
"The Caribou believe Ragnarok is the final battle that will bring about the end of the world. There's a giant wolf, a big tree, lots of fighting. It's really quite colorful."
"What's that have to do with us?"
"We were in negotiations in the castle when a loud boom was heard. Looking out the window, we saw a fireball streaking across the sky. I offered to take him outside so we could observe. After teleporting us both to the roof, I saw the fireball had faded, but a moment later, a series of rainbow waves trailed from the same object, accompanied by louder and louder shocks. The ambassador panicked, crying out that it was the Bifrost being shattered." Celestia raised a hoof to forestall the obvious question. "The Bifrost is a rainbow bridge between the gods and mortals in Caribou belief. Its destruction would be a sign of the apocalypse. And I must say, a series a rainbow colored explosions emanating from the sky really did lend a sense of plausibility to the ambassador's ravings. The fact that he was curled up muttering them from a corner was less convincing, however."
"I'm sorry," Scootaloo said. "I didn't mean to scare anypony."
"Not to worry, my little pony. I'm sure the ambassador will recover his wits eventually. I would, however, like to know exactly what you did."
"Wait," the filly said. "How do you know it was me and not Rainbow Dash?"
Celestia smiled, then Scootaloo heard yet another voice behind her. "Because I saw you."
Turning again, Scootaloo saw Princess Luna stepping carefully through the snow towards them.
"I was sleeping, but even in that state I'm still connected to my charges in the sky. I felt your presence as you briefly stepped into my realm."
"You mean, when I was up there, with the moon and stuff?"
Luna laughed gently. "Yes, my little pony. When you kissed the heavens I saw you and felt you. I have not experienced such a thing in a very, very long time."
"Okay," Rainbow said. "Now I'm confused. What are you all talking about?"
"Oh Dash, it was awesome!" Scootaloo said, turning to address her big sister. "I was up above everything! Higher than the mountains, the clouds, the air... everything."
"You can't fly above the air!"
Scootaloo just smiled, looking to Luna for confirmation.
"No way!" Dash said, seeing the princess nod. "I mean, I know you're good, kiddo, but how's that even possible?"
Luna and Celestia both could only shrug as Scootaloo launched into a lengthy and excited retelling of her experience. She explained everything she'd discovered about high speed flight, how she'd managed to get to the edge of space nearly by accident, and finished by explaining how she'd decided at the last moment to show off a bit "Rainbow Dash style" with some percussive aerobraking.
When the explanation was complete, Rainbow ran a forehoof down her face and then started laughing. "Okay, so let me get this straight," she said, after she'd caught her breath again. "Not only did you beat me in the race, but you took a detour—above the sky and even the air itself—along the way?"
"Umm," Scootaloo said, smiling a bit shyly. "Yeah, pretty much."
"And then came back down, using a blazing fireball to decelerate?"
Scootaloo nodded.
"So you slowed down and then you made like a hundred rainbooms in a row?"
Scootaloo's face grew a smirk as she nodded again.
"And you know that no pony would ever believe you, except that you somehow have two immortal princesses and the former fastest flier in Equestria as witnesses?"
"That's not all she has," Princess Celestia said, gesturing toward the filly's hindquarters with a forehoof.
Dash hadn't even noticed, nor, apparently, had the filly herself. But there it was, gracing her side. Scootaloo had finally found her cutie mark.
"What? Really?" The filly exclaimed, turning eagerly in circles, trying to get a better look at her own hindquarters. "What is it?"
Luna placed a steadying hoof on the filly's back, preventing further circling while they all examined the newly manifested mark.
To Dash, it looked like a bow and arrow, pointing upward and to the right, with two small stars above it.. The bow was oddly shaped though, and looked more like a crescent moon, yet with blue and white mottling. The arrow fletching was a pair of chevrons in Scootaloo's orange and purple colors. The head of the arrow was a single, longer, and narrower triangular shape, with some small pointed marking in the middle. It looked cool, but Dash didn't know how it really fit with Scootaloo's talent. "A bow and arrow?" she said, after pondering it for a moment.
Looking at it, Scootaloo herself had a much better idea of what it represented. "No... it's more than that!" she said. "That curve is kinda what the ground looks like from above the sky. I think if I went even higher, like all the way to the moon or something, then it'd look exactly like that."
"Yes, little one," Luna said. "That is exactly how it appears when one is watching from the moon."
Scootaloo smiled, glad to have her guess confirmed before she continued. "The stars, of course, are always out up there. And the arrow. The angles at the back aren't just feathers... They actually match the propagation patterns of the shockwaves you'd get at high subsonic speeds for a normal pegasus in flight. The first one is off the tip of your hooves out in front of you, and the later one is mainly from your wings. The shaft of the arrow, I think that's speed and altitude increasing like a graph. And the arrow head! See that pointed hoofball shape in the middle? That's what I was doing today. That's the aeroshell shape I calculated to minimize drag at really high speeds. The larger delta around it is the single shockwave cone that it generates, much narrower than the lower speed ones. And of course the colors are the pegasus magic itself I'm using to reshape the airflows in the first place."
"So," Dash said. "You got a cutie mark for going really fast and really high?"
"I believe it is more than that," said the voice of Princess Celestia. "I don't believe she got her mark merely for setting new speed and altitude records, but rather, for being fully aware of all physical and thaumaturgical principles at play as she did so."
"Yeah," Scootaloo chimed in, grinning at the compliment. "What she said!"
"Congratulations, my little pony," Celestia said, smiling down at the filly. "What you've learned and done is extremely impressive. However, if you could avoid any more 'percussive aerobraking' directly over the capital, I—as well as the Caribou ambassador, castle guards, and the city population in general—would greatly appreciate it."
"Yes, Ma'am," Scootaloo said, looking down at her hooves.
"No harm done, little one, but I should get back to the ambassador and let him know the apocalypse has been postponed a while longer."
"I should return to get what sleep I can as well," Luna said. "Congratulations again, Scootaloo. I look forward to seeing you again in the future."
"You mean, up there?" Scootaloo said, gesturing with her nose to the sky.
Luna chuckled. "Yes, 'up there', Scootaloo."
"Thank you, Princess!" the filly said. With that, both princesses turned and flew off toward the castle.
"So," Scootaloo said, turning to Dash with a grin a moment later. "Race you home?"
The cuteceanera was a blast! Sweetie had enjoyed herself thoroughly, but been surprised when Scootaloo insisted on inviting Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Once the pegasus explained it was just so she could rub the bullies' noses in it, it made more sense. Sweetie didn't really see the need for such vindictiveness herself, but she hadn't gotten the brunt of their teasing either. Besides, if Scootaloo wanted a little bit of relatively harmless vengeance, she couldn't deny her friend that. She did wonder how many times they could tolerate hearing Scootaloo retell her story though, as the look on their faces got worse each time.
Pinkie Pie, of course, had provided cake and decorations, also volunteering Sugarcube Corner so the event could be in town. Fluttershy had brought a choir of birds and had been providing music through the afternoon. As expected, there were games, dancing, and lots of sugary delights. Everypony was having a great time... then the first notes of the Chicken Dance started to play. Many of the foals from school knew Scootaloo had often been teased and called "chicken" due to her small wings, but poor Fluttershy apparently had no idea. Sweetie knew the mare would never have played such a song if she had. Then Pinkie Pie happened.
The pink mare leapt into the center of the dance floor, somehow dressed in a chicken costume. "Come on everypony!" She cried, starting to flap and wiggle. "Do the chicken dance!"
The dull roar of conversation around the room died off, as ponies across the party all turned to look at Scootaloo, who could no longer ignore what was happening. Diamond and Silver were grinning ear to ear, ready to see the guest of honor start crying or run off. As Pinkie continued to flap, twist, and clap in front of everyone, Sweetie Belle couldn't tell for sure if she was just completely oblivious, or if the baker instead knew exactly what she was doing. Sweetie suspected it was the latter though, and felt it confirmed a moment later when Scootaloo smiled and said, "Yeah, I love this song!" before joining the giant pink chicken on the dance floor. In a matter of moments, most of the other foals and even a few of the adults had joined them, everypony flapping and shaking their rumps as the room filled with laughter. Sweetie Belle soon joined them, and was glad to see that her friend was now able to laugh and have fun with a situation that might have ruined her entire night had it happened even a year ago.
The two troublemakers left before the song was even over, stomping out the door in frustration as Sweetie watched.
The rest of the party had gone off without a hitch, cruising on into the early evening. As it wound down to just Pinkie Pie and the other crusaders, Sweetie Belle realized she should probably head home as well. Rarity had left a few hours before, after extracting a promise from Sweetie that she'd head straight back to the boutique afterwards. She said her goodbyes, congratulating Scootaloo a final time, and headed for the door. As she stepped outside, the brisk air gave her a new sense of alertness, and she noticed that Fluttershy was in the street, singing softly to herself as she was feeding—or was it paying?—the birds that had been in the choir.
The yellow pegasus had an amazing voice, and Sweetie had always been impressed with how the normally timid mare could somehow put on a show in front of so many ponies. Sweetie herself loved to sing, but the thought of doing it in public always made her nervous. The point had been driven home during the party, as she realized that she should've been first on the dance floor, supporting her friend. Instead, she'd waited until most of the other foals were already joining in.
"How do you do it?" Sweetie said, approaching Fluttershy.
"I'm sorry," the yellow pegasus said. "How do I do what?"
"Sing in front of all those ponies?"
"Oh, umm... I don't know really. I just, I want to sing, and it feels so nice to do so."
"Doesn't it make you nervous though, with everypony watching you?"
"Well, umm, it used to, but I just try not to think about it too much."
"I wish I could do that," Sweetie said, idly scraping a hoof in the dirt. "I just get so embarrassed."
"Oh, that's no good at all." Fluttershy put down her birdseed and turned to the filly. "Your sister tells me you have a lovely voice. There's no need to be embarrassed."
"I... I know. I love to sing, but, it's just hard when other ponies are watching."
"Have you ever tried music lessons? I know they helped me when I was younger."
"I thought about it," Sweetie said. "But every time I talk to Octavia, she always seems so uptight. And I don't think Vinyl would even know what 'embarrassed' means."
"Well, umm, I could always try and teach you some things. That is, if you'd like."
"Really?" Sweetie said, her ears perking up. "You'd do that?"
"Oh yes, I'd be happy too. I mean, I'm not an expert or anything like Octavia, but I could try and help."
"That would be great!" Sweetie said excitedly, then her head drooped again. "But I don't really have much allowance to pay you with."
"Oh, you don't have to pay me," Fluttershy said. "I couldn't imagine taking bits for something that's only a hobby!"
"Are you sure? I mean, Octavia charges quite a few bits for her lessons, and... Wait! I know!" Sweetie again perked up. "I'll help you with your animals. Feed them, clean out cages, whatever you need!"
"Oh my..." Fluttershy said, taken aback by the filly's enthusiasm. "Well, yes, I suppose that would be okay. Besides, I'm sure all the sweet little animals would love to hear you sing as much as I would."
The filly ran and wrapped her legs around Fluttershy's neck. "Oh, thank you so much, Fluttershy!"
----
Rarity had been thrilled when she heard Sweetie would be taking lessons from Fluttershy, and not just "crusading" all the time. Not that she disapproved of her sister's friends, but a little time spent on a more focused activity should mean at least a bit less property damage to the boutique—on average—than the usual adventures.
More importantly, Rarity knew that Sweetie had a real talent for singing, and recognized that Fluttershy was the perfect pony to help her be confident using it. Rarity had chuckled at the thought; who would've suspected just a few years ago that Fluttershy would be teaching confidence? Sometimes it really amazed her how many ways her friends had grown over the past few years together. Friendship really was magic at times.
As the weeks went by, Apple Bloom couldn't be happier with things either. The fact that Scootaloo had gotten her mark, despite being a golem, meant she was sure to get her own as well. On top of that, Scootaloo herself was more fun to be around. Now that she'd conquered her dream, she'd cut back on the books and studying. She talked frequently about her theories, and spent plenty of time in flight practice of course, but it'd become a hobby, rather than an obsession. As such, the trio went back to their more adventurous ways, with Scootaloo pushing the others harder than ever so they could get their own marks.
Apple Bloom was happy to go along just for the adventure and excitement of course. Sweetie Belle however, had begun to realize that the "try everything" approach wasn't really how ponies found their true talents, and that their adventures in that department weren't likely to yield results. Still though, she was perfectly content just to be around her two best friends, and didn't really care if she had to wait a year—or even ten years—to get her mark.
Over at the library, Twilight Sparkle continued her research on the fillies' nature as best as she could. She'd exhausted all the useful books in her own library, as well as those in Canterlot. Her studies now came in punctuated bursts, whenever new books arrived by request from far off libraries around the world.
The unicorn had also spent a fair bit of time studying the theories Scootaloo had developed for supersonic flight. It was really quite impressive, as the filly seemed to solve by intuition problems that Twilight would've spent days just building mathematical models for. Even once she understood the math completely, Twilight still had a hard time believing Scootaloo had actually flown above the atmosphere. Not that she doubted the filly—or Luna's corroborating testimony—it's just that it was, well... too amazing for her mind to properly accept. Ever since the filly had described the experience, Twilight couldn't get the image out of her head—a curving planet, surrounded by stars at midday, sun and moon both in perfect clarity. It was hard to think of a more beautiful vista.
Twilight felt she'd always imagined grander things than most other ponies, and she'd spent years gazing at the stars, the moon, and the rest of the night sky. Yet it'd never really occurred to her that a pony could actually fly up and touch it! But apparently it was possible, and she knew she wanted to see it for herself, even if that meant carving a big chunk of time out of her schedule to join Rainbow Dash in the daily flight lessons Scootaloo had offered the two.
The lessons were difficult, for both her and Dash. Twilight had never been the most athletic pony, and the levels of effort that were required made for a regular struggle. At least the theory side of things was something she could comprehend though. Rainbow Dash seemed to have the opposite problem. The physical fitness side of things was not a challenge, but the complex theories and magical finesse required continued to frustrate the pegasus. Scootaloo had joked one day that if they could just combine their talents, they'd have it down in a heartbeat. To Twilight's credit, she'd only seriously considered the idea for less than a minute before dismissing it—and the sort of spell required—as too dangerous.
As for Pinkie Pie... well, there was that incident with the duck and the rubber hose, but for the most part, she was just happy that all her friends were happy.
----
"I still can't believe ya didn't get yer cutie mark!" Apple Bloom said, after she and her friends found each other amongst the crowds outside the show.
"Yeah, Sweetie," Scootaloo added. "You were totally awesome up there! You totally should've gotten your mark for that!"
"Thanks, girls," Sweetie Belle said. "I don't mind though. I had so much fun doing it, that's what matters."
"Yeah, not to mention you got first place! Those lessons with Fluttershy really paid off."
"We always knew ya liked singin'," Apple Bloom said. "But once ya started those lessons, it really looked like that just had to be yer true talent! Then tonight... first place at the spring talent show an' everything. I was just certain ya were gonna have yer mark after that standin' ovation."
Sweetie smiled, her friends' unwavering support warming her heart. While she was really and truly content just to enjoy herself, Sweetie did have to admit that she had thought the same thing herself, just for a moment. Just that one perfect moment, as she held that long, final note, the crowd rising and stomping in uproarious applause, the spotlight shining on her alone. Just for that moment she'd thought maybe, just maybe, she'd turn around and find her cutie mark. But apparently it wasn't meant to be, and that really was okay. First place, as Apple Bloom would say, was nothing to shake a stick at, and she meant it when she told her friends that the enjoyment she got from singing was really what mattered.
In the months since she'd started lessons, Sweetie had managed to overcome her stage fright, and the confidence she found felt wonderful. Not that confidence was all Fluttershy had taught her. The pegasus was actually quite musically adept, and had helped Sweetie improve in many technical aspects as well. Sweetie had never realized just how complicated vocal lessons could actually be, but she'd learned to love every minute of it as she practiced with Fluttershy and her animal choirs. She'd come to enjoy the time spent with the animals as well, quickly realizing why Fluttershy adored them so much. Getting first place felt great, Sweetie wouldn't deny that, but it also felt great being able to thank the pegasus in front of everyone. It had been a cliche thing to say, but Sweetie really was sincere when she'd told the crowd that she would never have been up there without Fluttershy.
"Come along, Sweetie!" The trio were interrupted by Rarity. "Time to go home!"
"Aww..." Scootaloo said. "I wanted to go celebrate!"
"It is a school night, dear, and even first place isn't going to excuse Sweetie from finishing her homework. I'm sure your own parents might have similar feelings, hmm?
Scootaloo nodded in acquiescence.
"You can all celebrate tomorrow," Rarity promised.
"Yeah! We'll have a party tomorrow!" Scootaloo declared, before looking around suspiciously when nothing happened. As nothing continued to happen, the others began to do the same. Then, when they'd almost given up...
"Did... somepony... say... par...ty!" gasped a bedraggled looking Pinkie Pie, legs splayed at the edge of collapse and feebly attempting to blow on a party horn.
"Pinkie?" Rarity said. "What's wrong, dear?"
As she worked on catching her breath, the party pony counted categories on her hooves. "So that's three places... and a runner up... in nine categories... plus six... special recognition awards." Pinkie leaned in toward Rarity and the three fillies. With shifty eyes and a conspiratorial whisper she asked, "Do you have any idea how many parties just got declared in the past five minutes?"
"Forty-two?" Scootaloo said, not missing a beat.
Pinkie quirked her eyebrow in thought, and began quickly tapping her hooves in a recount. "Oh no!" She cried, coming up short. Before they knew what happened, the remaining ponies could hear a party horn bleating from the far side of the crowd. Rarity chuckled softly. "She never changes, does she?"
----
The next day, the Cutie Mark Crusaders had met up in town and were heading toward their clubhouse.
"I still say we should've had a real party," Scootaloo said, a dejected tone in her voice.
"Aww, you heard Pinkie," Sweetie said. "Forty-two parties is too many, and I don't really need one. I just want to hang out with my friends."
"Okay, fine," Scootaloo said. "But I still got you a surprise!"
Sweetie Belle wasn't sure what to expect.
"Okay, close your eyes," Scootaloo said, as the trio came to the clubhouse entrance. She put her forehooves on Sweetie's back, guiding her up the steps and into the clubhouse. "Okay, open them!"
Sweetie obeyed, and found herself staring at the far wall of the clubhouse.
"Tada!" Scootaloo said, hovering just off the floor to gesture at a crudely built shelf. "I figured we needed a place to display all our trophies!"
Apple Bloom and Sweetie looked at the single trophy on the shelf, from their disastrous group attempt at a rock music show. The thing had been tossed around the clubhouse quite a bit as they continually rearranged the place for new projects, and had certainly seen better days. It did look kinda better up there, Sweetie thought, if a bit lonely.
"So?" Scootaloo asked, impatient. "What do you think?"
"Yeah, I like it," Sweetie said. "I can get mine and put it up there too." It wouldn't be too hard to talk Rarity into letting it go, she thought.
Rarity, proud of her little sister—perhaps more proud than Sweetie herself—had insisted on putting Sweetie's award from last night on the mantle at the boutique.
"Uhh... No need," Scootaloo said, as she pulled the award out of a box in the corner.
Sweetie glared the obvious, unspoken question at her friend.
"Remember when I said I forgot something and dashed off for a moment on the way here?"
Sweetie continued to stare, causing Scootaloo to blush with embarrassment as she continued. "So, yeah... I might've actually gone back to your sister's place and snagged this, then stashed it here."
"Does Rarity know you took it?"
"I left a note?" Scootaloo said, uncertain if that counted.
Sweetie sighed, then smiled. As usual, she couldn't stay mad at her friend, and the pegasus had done it with the best of intentions. "Alright, I'll tell her later."
"Well, go on then!" Apple Bloom said, nodding at the pegasus. "Put it up there."
Scootaloo grinned, hovering higher and placing Sweetie's trophy on the shelf, twisting it back and and forth several times, trying to get just the right angle. "There," she said, making one final adjustment. "Perfect!"
As she said it, the single, impatiently pounded nail on one end gave way, and the shelf collapsed. Scootaloo grabbed for the nearest trophy, but missed. Apple Bloom dove for the other, but came up short as well. Sweetie Belle, however, managed to catch both in her field before they hit the floor.
"Wow, umm... those things must be heavier than I thought!" Scootaloo said.
Apple Bloom just rolled her eyes. "Don't worry," she said with a sigh, as she took the surprisingly lightweight trophies from Sweetie. "I'll fix it later." Placing the trophies in the corner farthest from the dangling shelf, she amended under her breath, "Like I always do."
Sweetie Belle actually heard the last bit, and tried to suppress a giggle. For all that Scootaloo had learned, she still couldn't hit a nail to save her life. Apple Bloom made eye contact with the giggling unicorn, and then started laughing herself. Scootaloo, meanwhile, was sure she'd missed something, and demanded to be let in on the joke. The situation escalated from there, back into the normal chaos that tended to surround everything the trio did, and they spent the next bit of the afternoon joking, laughing, and planning future adventures.
The chatter was interrupted by a loud boom and a falling shelf.
"What was that?" Scootaloo said.
Apple Bloom didn't even turn to look. "Sounds like yer trophy shelf finally gave up for good."
Then there was another boom, and all three of the ponies felt the clubhouse rattle.
"I only built one shelf," Scootaloo said, standing up. The other two got their hooves under them as well, and walked out to the porch. Another booming thud was followed by the distant sound of Winona barking.
"Somethin' ain't right!" Apple Bloom said. The barking was coming from the far east part of the orchard, toward the border with the Everfree, and she stared hard in that direction.
"You two coming or what?" Scootaloo said, already hovering over the bottom of the clubhouse steps as they heard another thud. The other two looked at each other, then turned and trotted down the steps, following Scootaloo off into the orchards.
"Come on, come on!" Scootaloo said, flying backwards and trying to speed up the two land-bound ponies. Sweetie and Apple Bloom were galloping as fast as they could without tripping over the various roots and branches the winter had left scattered between the trees. The barking and the thuds had gotten louder as they approached, and then Apple Bloom thought she could make out hollering up ahead as well.
"That sounds like Applejack," she said.
"What do you think is going on?" Sweetie said between breaths.
They didn't have to wait long for an answer though. As the trio came to the top of a low ridge, they saw it, and came to a stop trying to contemplate what was before them. There, down in the next shallow valley, was the biggest timberwolf they'd ever heard of. Applejack had told them all of the giant, amalgamated, wooden canine Spike had rescued her from, but this one looked to be ten times that size at least. Running between its massive paws and snapping jaws they could see Applejack and Winona as well. Another earth-shaking thud rumbled across the valley as the thing's massive paw slammed down again, just missing Applejack.
Scootaloo didn't hesitate, dashing over the rise and down, before looking back to see who followed. Sweetie was hot on her tail, but she was surprised that there was no sign of Apple Bloom.
"I'm comin', sis!" The determined shout came from in front of her, the earth pony already well ahead of the world's fastest pegasus. Scootaloo felt bad she'd doubted her friend for even a second, and sped up to join her.
As the fillies got closer, they could see the battle wasn't going well. Applejack was barely dodging paws and teeth as they tried to crush her, and only very rarely getting in even a single kick. The kicks themselves seemed to do nothing, which was saying something when they came from a pony who could uproot trees with her strength. Then she slipped.
The fillies' eyes all went wide as they saw the wolf's paw connect. It swatted Applejack like a gnat. The fillies heard the sickening crunch even over their own galloping hooves. The mare was sent flying into a nearby boulder, her body wrapping partly around the rock like a wet noodle, ending in another awful crack as her skull made impact. Applejack slid to the ground, limbs at impossible angles, and didn't move.
Apple Bloom screamed, charging the giant beast with tears streaming from her eyes. In her wake, large swaths of grass withered and died instantly where her hooves touched the ground. Reaching the wolf, she leapt, kicking, bucking and punching every bit of timber she could. At each impact, green bits of leaf would shrivel, twigs would dry up and fall, and the larger trunks and branches would form knotholes of rot. The beast was huge though, and the angry little pony could barely even reach its ankles.
She didn't care though. Apple Bloom would take the thing apart inch by inch if she had to. So she kept kicking, kept bucking, and kept pouring all of her anger and hatred into a furious whirlwind of hooves, pausing her attack only long enough to dodge when the thing tried to swat at her or take a bite.
Apple Bloom didn't know it, but Scootaloo had rushed to attack as well. The pegasus soared all around the head and shoulders of the timberwolf, taking shots at its tender ears, eyes, and nose whenever she could manage. Unlike Apple Bloom though, she didn't seem to be able to do much more than annoy the creature. Still, she figured that if she could at least keep its attention, then it would have less of a chance of hurting her friends. Unfortunately, only a minute or so into the fight, it seemed to realize what she was doing, and focused back on the troublesome filly at its paws.
Stepping to the side as the timberwolf swatted at her yet again, Apple Bloom didn't see the root sticking out of the ground, and found herself tripping. She managed to roll out of the way just in time, but before she could stand, another paw was coming down directly on top of her and there was no way she could dodge it.
Opening her eyes, Apple Bloom found the woven tree trunks had stopped just above her, the telltale blue glow of Sweetie Belle's field saving her life. She rolled out from under the paw as the creature stomped again in the same place. She was sick of this, and had an idea. Leaping onto the toes, she quickly scrambled up to the thing's ankle. There she punched a forehoof into the wood, causing it to rot and crumble. This gave her a place to grip. Doing the same with the other forehoof, she started to climb.
Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle stood just beyond the range of the enraged timberwolf. She was keeping a close eye on her friends, and using her magic to tangle and restrain the wolf wherever she could. She saw that Winona had gone to Applejack's side as the fight moved down the valley slightly. That meant the dog and Applejack were out of range of the battle—at least for the moment—letting her focus her energy solely on protecting her two friends. That was good, as preventing Apple Bloom from being crushed had taken an incredible amount of energy indeed. The beast had the mass of an entire forest, considerable inertia, and gravity on its side. It also refused to give up.
Scootaloo was running out of ideas. She could still distract the timberwolf with a solid hit to a tender area, but it was expecting those now, and came pretty close to chomping her last time she dove at its face. Maybe she could do some damage if she came in at supersonic and cracked the barrier next to its ears or something, but she could just as easily end up hitting the thing and flattening herself as well.
Apple Bloom wasn't faring much better. She'd made it halfway up the creature's front leg, but then it started trying to shake her off. Her hoofholds were good, but the sheer size of the thing meant it could bring an amazing amount of centrifugal force to bear as it swung the massive limb back and forth. Apple Bloom could only hold on, hugging her body tightly to the wood. Unfortunately, the rotting continued as she did, the entire section between her hooves splintering and coming free on an upward swing.
Sweetie gasped as she saw Apple Bloom go flying. Thankfully, Scootaloo saw it too, diving to catch her friend as she sailed down the valley. Sweetie saw the two disappear behind an outcropping, and galloped in pursuit to make sure they were okay. She found them, safe, but shaken from what had apparently been a crash landing.
"That was close," Scootaloo said, gasping for air.
"Yeah, thanks," Apple Bloom said, getting back to her hooves. "Why won't that thing go away? We gotta get it outta here somehow and get back to my sister, but I can't do more than dent it."
"Well, at least you can dent it," Scootaloo said, still out of breath. "It barely notices anything I hit it with."
The conversation was interrupted by an earth-shaking growl and a series of thuds. Turning to look, the fillies saw the timberwolf rounding the bend in the valley, stalking towards them.
Apple Bloom charged again with renewed anger. "Why won't you die!"
Scootaloo dusted off as well, still out of ideas, but ready to do what she could.
The beast swept another massive paw at Apple Bloom, and Sweetie grabbed it in her field, slowing it just enough that Apple Bloom could dodge. As she did so though, she didn't see the massive jaws bearing down from above her own position until the last moment. Sweetie leapt backwards, but the wolf managed to snag her left front leg in its teeth, yanking her into the air after it made contact with flesh.
Sweetie felt herself being tossed like a rag doll as the creature shook its head back and forth. There was pain, something very rare to the magical golem. That pain was getting worse, which was even rarer. She heard herself scream, some part of her surprised by the noise, almost like it came from somewhere outside herself. Then something gave, and the unicorn found herself weightless.
Opening her eyes, the world seemed to move in slow motion. She was high above the timberwolf, thrown free when her lower foreleg had ripped loose. Looking down at the limb, she saw it ended just below the elbow, glowing blue droplets running over the bent and twisted metal protruding from the stump. There was pain, yes, but a strange calmness as well. Pain was there to let her know she was injured, but that was all. It was just a situational notification, not something to worry about now that she was aware of the injury.
Looking back to the ground below, she realized there was quite a large fall scheduled in her future. Scootaloo was buzzing the wolf's head still, but after a relative moment, she looked up and saw Sweetie, changing course to head her way. That seemed like a waste of time to the unicorn though, and she teleported herself to the top of the outcropping below, instead of waiting on the seemingly slow pegasus to catch her. Arriving, Sweetie balanced on her three remaining hooves and surveyed the ongoing battle.
Scootaloo looked surprised, seeing only a blue flash in the sky where her friend had been. It only lasted a fractional second—or a lingering moment for Sweetie—though. Scootaloo had reaction times in a league only Rainbow Dash could match, and quickly recognized the teleport for what it was. As such, she turned and rapidly found Sweetie perched atop the rocky outcrop. The pegasus's face took on a look of horror though, once she realized her friend had lost a leg, and flew to check on her.
As Sweetie watched, Scootaloo forgot completely about the timberwolf, pausing midair in shock for a moment, before flying directly toward her. The wolf didn't forget though, and lunged, jaws open, ready to snap upon the distracted orange pegasus. Sweetie looked down to the creature's feet as well, seeing that Apple Bloom still seemed determined to get stepped on, attacking the paws of the creature to little effect. And the wolf itself was no less stubborn, she realized.
All timberwolves were known to be vicious, but could usually be scared off without too much effort. This one was relentless though, never mind enormous. It may have already killed one pony, and it didn't look like it would stop until it had killed Sweetie and her friends as well. Even if they ran, Sweetie imagined that the creature would only end up hurting some other pony instead. On top of that, until they got rid of it, there was no way to get help to Applejack.
Looking up again, Sweetie saw that the massive jaws were just now closing above and below the oblivious Scootaloo. No, there was no other choice. She had to stop this timberwolf, and it wouldn't stop until it was dead. With her mind made up, Sweetie Belle struck. She formed a razor sharp field, instantly shearing the creature's head in two right in front of its "ears." Momentum still carried the closing jaws together, but detached now from the creature, they crashed together just behind the escaping pegasus. Sweetie saw that her strike had been clean. The glow of life in the creatures eyes winked out even before the jaws had collided, meaning she hadn't caused any extra suffering to the beast as she ended its life. She felt Fluttershy would respect that.
"What happened?" Scootaloo said, landing next to Sweetie Belle.
"It wasn't going to give up," Sweetie said, feeling the universe speed back up around her. "So I stopped it."
"Yeah, but..." Scootaloo wasn't sure to make of that, then remembered. "Oh my gosh, Sweetie, your leg!"
"It's okay, it doesn't hurt much."
Scootaloo looked down at the injured leg. Only a drop or two of blue could be seen on the ground below the stump. That was good, she thought, right? She didn't know a lot about first aid—and even if she had, she doubted it would have much to stay about ponies with metal skeletons—but not bleeding profusely was probably a good thing. "If you say so, Sweetie."
"Trust me Scoots, I'm fine. We should see to Applejack, though," Sweetie said, before teleporting herself back to the initial scene of the fight.
Scootaloo felt the pit of her stomach drop as she remembered what she'd seen happen to Apple Bloom's sister. She sped toward the boulder where they'd last seen Applejack, and caught up with Apple Bloom along the way. Flying overhead, she could hear the galloping earth pony repeating a tearful prayer to whatever powers might be listening. "Please be okay! Please be okay! Please be okay!"
Apple Bloom crested the hill and rushed frantically to her sister's side. "Wake up!" she said, crying over the broken form, as Winona frantically nuzzled at her. "Wake up, AJ!" The orange mare didn't respond though.
Scootaloo landed a few yards away. Approaching, she could hardly stand to look. Applejack's back was obviously broken, her rear legs twisted in a way that would be impossible otherwise. A sharp piece of rib was sticking out of her barrel as well, sliding in and out slightly with each breath. But she was breathing, at least for now.
"Don't just stand there!" Apple Bloom yelled. "Go get help!"
"Right! On it!" Scootaloo leapt and sped for Ponyville, forcing herself to wait an entire fifteen seconds before cracking the barrier, so as to avoid further injuring Applejack with a shockwave.
Sweetie Belle limped forward from where her teleport spell had landed her a moment earlier. She gently ran her magic over the injured mare, hoping there was some way she could help. What she found was even worse than expected though, and she realized her talent could best be spent elsewhere. Promising Apple Bloom she'd return shortly, she teleported away.
Big Mac was surprised as a blue flash lit up the barn from behind him. Turning, he was even more surprised to find Sweetie Belle. Realizing the filly was missing a leg ratcheted up the surprise several more notches, but it wasn't until Sweetie explained what had happened to Applejack that the stoic and level headed stallion let emotion show on his features.
The two quickly rounded up Granny Smith, and Sweetie teleported them all to the far orchard so they could say their goodbyes to Applejack. By the time he approached his fallen sister, Mac was weeping openly, and he didn't care who knew it. He wrapped Apple Bloom up in a hug, their tears soaking each other's fur as Winona whimpered in confusion.
Twilight and Spike arrived a moment later with another pop. Looking up at the new arrival, Apple Bloom ran toward the purple alicorn. "Twilight! You have to save her, Twilight!"
The alicorn trotted over quickly to the injured mare, scanning her with magic fields. She found the same thing Sweetie had discovered, and hung her head.
Seeing the reaction, Apple Bloom screamed. "No! Do something!"
Twilight turned to Apple Bloom, tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Apple Bloom. There's nothing I can do."
"Cast a healing spell!"
"There's no such thing."
"There has to be! I see unicorn doctors fixin' ponies up all the time!"
"A unicorn can try to fix injuries. They can relocate bones, try to close wounds, even remove infections. But you can't just 'heal' a pony."
"Then fix those things!"
"I wish I could! More than anything..." Twilight broke down into sobs. "There are just too many injuries. Anything I do would just hurt her more."
"No!" Apple Bloom said, stamping her hoof. "There has to be somethin'. What about Princess Celestia? She can fix anythin'. I just know she can!"
Twilight wiped tears from her eyes. "Don't you think I tried?"
"Whaddya mean?"
"Celestia and Luna are on a mission to the Caribou. Their high places are guarded against all foreign magic. I couldn't scry her location, and even if I could, I wouldn't be able to teleport there. I tried and failed at sending a message with my own magic. Even Spike's dragonfire couldn't get though. Trust me, I tried everything I could think of when Scootaloo told me what was happening."
Spike hung his head. "I'm sorry Apple Bloom, I tried a bunch of times, but I'll keep trying." With that, he pulled out a scroll and started scratching another message. "Maybe we'll get lucky and she'll take a break or something and one will get through."
As Spike continued to burn scroll after scroll, Scootaloo returned, leading the other Elements as they galloped and flew through the orchard. Rarity let out a barely audible gasp as she came upon the scene, the sight of the strong farm mare, broken and twisted before her, leaving a fierce and stalwart determination on her visage in lieu of her usual theatrics.
Fluttershy was beholden to no such reservations though. The yellow pegasus broke down in tears upon seeing her dear friend in such a mangled state. She walked up to Applejack's barely breathing form, her own tears dripping and mingling with the blood trickling slowly through the fur of the unconscious pony.
Rainbow Dash was likewise unabashed in her grief. Applejack had been her best friend and friendly rival for years now, and the thought that somepony so strong could be in such a state... it wasn't possible. She tried to go closer, but the sight was too much. She didn't want to remember her friend that way, so she turned and rejoined those at the edge of the gathering. Fluttershy followed a moment later, leaving the Apple family to say their goodbyes in private as Apple Bloom returned to her sister's side.
Granny Smith was the next to retreat, limping back to the larger crowd. She'd seen too much death in her time. Her own husband, of course, as well as her son and daughter-in-law a few years later. She had sincerely hoped she'd never have to witness the passing of one her grandchildren, but the old mare was wise enough to know that a pony didn't always get what she hoped for in life. Holding her granddaughter's hoof a moment earlier, she had felt the life inside her draining away, and knew Twilight was right. Some things were more powerful than magic, and death came for every pony in the end.
Big Mac sat, holding his younger sister, and watching his older one slowly dying in front of him. Tears left dark red tracks down his muzzle as he watched the slow rise and fall of gurgling breaths, the gap between each becoming longer every time. In his hooves, Apple Bloom was clutching Applejack's one uninjured foreleg, her own tears soaking into the fetlock and earth around it. She was muttering promises, oaths, demands, and anything else she could think of to convince her sister to come back to her.
All the while, Winona was dividing her attention between licking the tears from the face of Apple Bloom, and nuzzling her fallen master. The poor dog didn't know why she wouldn't get up, but she recognized the sounds the other ponies were making, and she whimpered along with them.
Apple Bloom's mind was racing a million miles an hour. There had to be some way to fix this. There just had to. She wouldn't let this happen. She'd stop it. As she squeezed the hoof of her only sister, she could feel the life draining out of her, and with it, time. If only she could think of something. Some way to reach one of the Princesses maybe. She wished she could find some way to fix this... any way at all.
Then the breathing stopped.
Apple Bloom felt the change in rhythm, and looked up. She held her own breath for a moment. The moment became two. Applejack's chest still didn't move. Winona began to howl.
"No!" she said, scrambling out of her brother's hooves to stand up. "No! Applejack! Noooo!" The filly began pounding on her sister's lifeless chest in a crude imitation of what she'd seen of first aid techniques.
Big Mac stood and looked down at her. "It's over, Bloom," he said between his own sniffles. "Time to let her go."
"No!" the filly said, determined. "There's got to be a way to fix this!"
Mac put a leg around Apple Bloom, trying to usher her away. The filly would have none of it though, and he couldn't bring himself to forcibly drag her away. Instead, he hung his head and stepped away to join the others, hoping Apple Bloom would follow in her own time.
Rarity saw what was happening, and stepped toward the crying filly. "Come on dear, let her go."
Apple Bloom ignored her, and continued to pound on Applejack's body.
Sweetie Belle limped forward on her own three legs, joining her sister. "Come on, Apple Bloom, it'll be okay. Just let her go."
Apple Bloom turned her head briefly and shouted "No!" before turning back to her task.
The other ponies all watched in a sad kind of shock as Apple Bloom continued to pound on the lifeless body of her sister. Scootaloo tried next, her voice quavering at the horrible sight. "Please, just stop, AB. Just stop and let her be."
Apple Bloom did stop, then turned slowly to face the assembled ponies behind her. Her entire body was shaking with rage and fear and sadness as she stepped toward them. Planting her hooves as she was halfway between her sister and the crowd, she glared at each of the gathered ponies in turn.
"I..." she said, panting and nearly hyperventilating with fury as Winona continued to howl. A sudden wind began to whip through the grass.
"Said..." she continued, her tone dark, even as her eyes began to glow with an actinic whiteness. She reared onto her hind legs and Winona howled even louder.
Apple Bloom took a deep breath, then slammed her forehooves to the ground and screamed the most powerful word in the universe.
"NO!"
The final crying shout put even the Royal Canterlot Voice to shame, matched in intensity only by the howl of the loyal canine behind her. As Apple Bloom's hooves made contact with the ground, the earth itself cracked beneath her. A shallow fissure split the ground impossibly fast, racing out of sight in both directions, causing the assembled ponies to stumble in the resulting quake.
Windows throughout Ponyville shattered. Tiles and frescoes in Canterlot cracked and split. Far away in the Griffon kingdoms, stones and bricks fell from parapets that had stood for a thousand years. The mighty river in the center of Zebra lands formed waves large enough to surf on. Across the sea, the Caribou high chieftain found his meeting with two princesses interrupted when all the candles and fires in the keep were extinguished. And deep, deep below, in the darkest caverns and caves, stalactites rained from the ceiling, passages collapsed, and the guardian of Tartarus himself covered his three heads and began to whimper in fear. Pinkie Pie however, just giggled, her tail suddenly twitching in much the same way Winona's was now doing.
All around Apple Bloom, life erupted. The grass itself became a veritable bamboo forest, cutting her off from the ponies on the other side of the fissure. As she turned toward her fallen sister, the rock Applejack had lain against shifted underneath the injured pony and rose to become a stone plinth.
Flowers shot up everywhere, blooming to impossible sizes in seconds. Bluebells, sunflowers, daisies, roses, and even tulips sprang up as Apple Bloom walked slowly back toward her sister, each step causing an explosion of life. As she approached, the plinth began to wrap itself in saplings and branches, some even growing though the rock itself. The limbs snaked beneath Applejack, lifting her gently, as others quickly grew and weaved to form a sort of shallow cradle beneath her body. Lush, green leaves quickly covered the new surface, followed moments later by thousands of white and light-pink flowers, before the branches receded, and lowered Applejack onto the soft petals.
As Apple Bloom reached the bottom of the plinth, more branches grew, reaching out in sequence from the side of the stone and interlocking to form a new step just as she placed each hoof. Reaching the top of the living staircase, she looked down at her sister and smiled.
Applejack felt like she'd slept on a rock. All her muscles were sore, her back ached something fierce, her throat was scratchy, and her eyes felt like they'd been sandblasted. Opening her eyes, things were blurry. Looking up, she saw a pony towering regally and serenely over her. She was smiling down at Applejack, her eyes glowing a bright and fierce white. Blinking to clear her vision, Applejack looked again and this time recognized the fuzzy outline of a giant pink bow that could only belong to one pony.
"Apple Bloom?" she croaked, her throat and mouth dry as could be. At the recognition, the white glow faded from Apple Bloom's eyes, replaced with tears of joy as the filly collapsed onto her sister and wrapped her in a tight hug.
Back across the fissure, the other ponies could see nothing of the tearful reunion, obscured as it was behind a massive wall of grass-turned-forest. Instead, they stood transfixed by what they had seen. Following the fissure to the right as it appeared, they saw that it pointed directly to where the timberwolf had fallen. As they watched, what had been a pile of logs between the orchard's hills had sprouted and grown into the most impossible tree any of them had ever seen. The trunk reminded Rarity of skyscrapers she'd seen in Manehatten. It was hundreds of feet in diameter at least. The exposed root tops were massive enough to be hills in their own right, and a pony could only imagine how large they must be as they continued underground. Turning eyes skyward, they watched as branches climbed a thousand feet or more into the sky. There, among the clouds themselves, they spread out into a canopy that cast a shadow over at least a dozen acres of farmland, before blossoming into millions of white and light-pink flowers. Then they heard Winona bark excitedly, and turned their attention back toward the grass forest.
Apple Bloom held the hug for what seemed an eternity. Eventually, she heard Winona barking nearby. When she felt a cold nose poking at her flank a moment later, she finally gave up and released her sister. Turning, she found a familiar snout to blame, and gave the dog a good scratch behind the ears before her eyes went wide.
Applejack sensed the movement, and looked up to give the dog a pat herself, getting a cold nose to her own hindquarters in return. Then she saw what had Apple Bloom's attention. There, on the filly's hindquarters, was her cutie mark. It was simple, yet bold, the silhouette of a tree, deep roots supporting a strong trunk, leading skyward to a massive canopy. It was the sort of tree that becomes a landmark, weathering any storm, stalwart in its sheer presence, always there season after season, and generation after generation. Above it, two small stars sat in the sky. No words were needed as the two sisters looked each other in the eye, smiling, and simply hugged again.
Looking around a moment later, Applejack started to take stock of her surroundings and her memories. Last thing she recalled was a massive tree-cum-paw colliding with her side. Now she was, for some reason, in the middle of a sort of jungle, laying in a bed of flowers... and not just any flowers. "Wait a minute," she said, pointing to the petals. "Are these...?"
Apple Bloom lifted her head and looked around. In her fugue state, she'd not really been aware of the details. All she remembered was the single-minded purpose of saving her sister, and beginning to draw on the land and life around her to do so. Wiping some lingering tears away with a fetlock as she looked at the flowers, a smile grew on her face. She recognized them as readily as her sister did. "Heh, apple blooms. Whadda ya know?"
It took only a few minutes for the other ponies to arrive. Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo had been first, scouting by air, before returning and helping the others across the fissure and grass forest. As Fluttershy delivered Granny Smith, a cheer broke out. Looking up, the old mare saw her two granddaughters—and that wonderfully stubborn mutt—standing at the top of some overgrown boulder, smiling and healthy. Well how about that, she thought. Even at my age, the universe keeps insisting on proving me wrong. Though, technically, she'd been right. There were things more powerful than magic—even her granddaughter's amazing earth pony magic—and death was certainly one of them. But she'd forgotten that another one—perhaps one of the most important ones—could be the love of a young filly for her sister.
Still weak from her near death experience, Applejack found her legs shaking beneath her as she tried to descend the stairs from the top of the plinth. Seeing this, Rainbow quickly flew up and gave her a lift to the ground.
"Sorry about that, AJ," Dash said. "We would've been here sooner, but we got kinda distracted by that tree."
"Tree?" Apple Bloom said, joining them on the ground.
"Uh, yeah..." Dash said, pointing a hoof up and over the high grass into the distance.
The sisters could only stare, their heads slowly tilting further and further back as they followed the trunk and branches into the sky.
"Gah!" Apple Bloom snorted in surprise. "What happened?"
"That," Dash said, looking down at the filly. "Is what I'd like to know."
"As would I," said a third voice, which after recognizing the exchange that had just occurred, amended. "Oh dear, I hope this isn't becoming a pattern."
Turning, Dash was less surprised this time to see Celestia and Luna behind her. The flying reindeer was a bit of a shock though.
"Princess!" Twilight said, running to greet her mentor.
"Hello, Twilight," she said, before turning to the rest of the ponies, most of whom were bowing. "Greetings to all of you."
"Did Spike finally manage to get through?"
Celestia had received nothing from the young dragon, and was just opening her mouth to say so when a cloud of smoke streaked out of the sky and coalesced into several hundred scrolls, burying the princess up to her knees in paper. As Twilight often overreacted—with results quite similar to this—Celestia was about to laugh off the incident to help spare her protege some of the embarrassment that usually followed. Surprisingly though, Twilight didn't seem embarrassed in the least by the flood of messages that had apparently been sent. That was worrisome. It meant Twilight had genuinely felt that many message attempts were necessary, and still felt her actions were justified now. Celestia doubted even the sudden appearance of a thousand foot high tree near Ponyville would cause that much alarm for the young alicorn.
"Twilight," Celestia said, her tone suddenly more serious. "What's wrong? How bad is it?"
The librarian looked up, and Celestia could see tears forming—apparently again—in her already bloodshot eyes. "It's okay now," Twilight said, taking a steadying breath. "But it was bad. Real bad."
Celestia looked around, and didn't doubt for a moment that it must have been. Something incredibly powerful had happened here. There was an altar of some sort, a world tree had formed, and the sheer force of magic involved had breached every one of the Caribou defenses all the way across the sea. That had alerted her, Luna, and the Caribou chieftain as well. Finding the source had been easier than finding the sun at midday. In the thaumaturgical spectrum, this place had literally been lit up brighter than her own sun.
The somber thoughts were interrupted as an orange and purple blur came swooping in.
"Hey Sweetie!" Scootaloo said. "I found your leg!" Looking up after landing next to the injured unicorn, the young pegasus made eye contact with the three new arrivals. "Woah! A flying reindeer!"
The rest of the assembled ponies went dead silent. Even those in the back who'd decided to nibble on a few of the giant flowers stopped chewing. Sweetie went to elbow her friend, but found she needed her remaining foreleg to stay upright for now. She settled for poking Scootaloo with the detached hoof.
"What was that for?" Scootaloo said, before her brain took a really wrong turn. "Wait... You all can see it too, right? The big flying reindeer behind the princess?"
Twilight smiled nervously, getting ready to apologize, when the Caribou chieftain let out a huge guffaw.
"I like little one," he said, chuckling. "She say what is on mind. Not over think."
The massive cervid approached Scootaloo, landing as he did so. She looked up and saw that he stood almost as tall as Celestia at the shoulder, but the massive antlers on his head brought the full height and figure well above hers. He was covered in thick, heavy fur as well, quite a bit more dense than the coats of most ponies. "Yes, little one," he said, smiling. "I am, as you say, flying reindeer. We do not like name 'reindeer' though. Deer are tiny things, weak. To put reins on a deer, you make slave of deer. Griffons try that once. We fight them across two seas. They no try again, but still call us name, 'reindeer.' No, we are Caribou! You understand?"
"Yes sir," Scootaloo said. "Sorry sir."
The Caribou laughed again. "I am Gunnar. What is your name, little one?"
"Scootaloo."
"Is okay, Scootaloo. Not knowing is not fault." The Caribou made to turn away, paused, then turned back to the filly. "You are not same Scootaloo who cracked sky and made embarrassment of Caribou ambassador, no?"
The little pegasus had lost track of the grammar halfway through the question, but got the gist of it. "Umm... Yes sir," she said. "That was me."
"You, little pony, are one who cracked Bifrost?"
"Yes sir... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare anypony—" She was cut off as the massive chieftain slapped her on the back in mirth, knocking the wind out of her.
"Excellent!" he bellowed with laughter. "Ambassador was brother-in-law. No like, always wimp. Came running home moons ago, crying about end of world. Sent him North, work on rock farm. Now find you are big, scary, world-ending 'Scootaloo'? Even better! Never let him forget, scared by little pony filly. Ha! We laugh around fire many years with that!"
After the Caribou had calmed down a bit, he continued. "So, mighty Scootaloo, tell me. Is tree your doing? Did you crack earth as well as sky?"
"No sir. I think my friend Apple Bloom did that." Scootaloo pointed out Apple Bloom, standing a few feet away.
Seeing that Scootaloo was pointing at another small filly, the chieftain turned to Celestia and Luna. "Remind me, never invade here. You crafty ponies teach even smallest filly how to split sky and ground. No end well for me, ja?"
Luna smiled. "Of course, Gunnar. Perhaps this will help you see the value in our trade proposals as well."
"Oh, crafty moon pony think she intimidate Gunnar with little fillies?"
"Gunnar!" Luna said, in mock affront. "Surely you don't think we'd try to intimidate you, do you?"
"Knowing you, only if it work."
"Is it working?"
Gunnar turned and stared up at the massive world tree before him before turning back to the princesses. "Hmm..." he said, holding a forehoof off the ground about a foot to indicate a small amount. "Maybe little bit."
Luna laughed, as did Celestia. The two had been back and forth with Gunnar for months, most recently spending nearly a week in his territory. In the process, they'd gotten to know the Caribou quite well. Like them, he shared a strong sense of duty, and also knew not to take most things too seriously.
"Okay, enough with chit chat," Gunnar declared, turning to Apple Bloom. "Tell us story of how you make first new world tree in ages."
"Well, umm..." Apple Bloom wasn't sure where to start.
"Wait," Gunnar interrupted, catching proper sight of Sweetie Belle for the first time. "Why is other small pony missing leg? And why leg have metal bones? Also, why she no screaming?"
Sweetie Belle could only laugh. "Don't worry about that," she told the Caribou. "Apple Bloom's going to help me fix it later."
"I am?" Apple Bloom said.
"Yeah, you know, like you always do?"
Apple Bloom had to smile at that and, glancing only now at the protruding metal, was already realizing how she could fit most of it back together.
"Okay," Gunnar said. "Back to story then. Little pony. Big tree. Begin!"
"Umm," Apple Bloom said. "It's kinda a long story, if ya want to get all the bits and pieces."
"Is good ending?"
"Yeah," Apple Bloom said, looking toward her sister, and getting a smile in return. "I reckon it's a mighty good ending."
"Is best kind of story then," Gunnar said, before gesturing to the other ponies who were still standing around. "Come. All ponies, come, hear big story. You, sun pony, you make fire, no?"
Celestia nodded.
"Good," Gunnar continued. "We do this right then. Big fire, here in middle. Then we sit and hear big story of big tree from little pony."
Celestia stepped forward, and used her magic to carve a fire pit in the ground of the clearing. Luna and a couple of other ponies quickly gathered some branches and logs, and Celestia lit the bonfire. The ponies, caribou, and dragon all sat in a circle as Apple Bloom began the story.
It took quite a while to tell, with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle jumping in with their own perspectives, Twilight, Dash, and the other Elements occasionally clarifying their bits, and the princesses having to explain phrases that seemed to get lost in cultural translation. Gunnar himself didn't help either, interrupting regularly with questions, or laughs so loud that the storyteller had to pause and wait for him to finish. It was a good time for everypony though.
At last, Apple Bloom had caught up to the end, where she'd looked up in shock at the massive tree, unsure herself how it had come to be. After a moment of silent thought, Gunnar spoke up.
"So, pony mark is world tree. This obvious. But sun pony has told Gunnar that only pony with mark really understand mark. What is mark to you, little one?"
Apple Bloom had to think on that for a minute. She hadn't even meant to grow the world tree, but her cutie mark was very clearly the tree.
"I think... well, I think it's just a tree," Apple Bloom said. "I mean, a big one and all, but it still does what all trees do. And I'm an Apple, so trees are what we do. Now, I've always been good at fixin' things, but sometimes 'fixin'' don't just mean repairin' what's broke. Sometimes it means holdin' onto somethin' and not lettin' go. All the rest o' mah family got apples for marks. I got the tree itself though, and the tree is what holds onto all them apples, and the ground beneath too. My roots go down, down to the earth like that tree. All the past, all my family and friends, the farm, all my attachments. Roots go deep, even when the branches reach to the sky. A tree is strong too. I don't reckon anything could knock that tree down. You could try, but the tree would just say 'No.' Kinda like I did with Applejack, I think. Everypony told me to let her go, but she's my family, my roots."
Apple Bloom found she was starting to cry again as she remembered how close she'd come to losing her sister. "They said to let go, but I just had to say 'No!' I couldn't let her go anymore than that tree could let go of the hillside. Don't matter how strong the wind is, how fierce the rain or storms can get. They can try and rip it loose, but that tree ain't gonna let go of that hill for a long, long time, ya know?"
"Ja!" Gunnar cried, raising a hoof in the air. "Is great, this! Is epic! You stand with family, stand with love. You not give up. You turn, face Death himself, say 'No.' Death say, 'Yes.' But you not blink, not back down. You, little filly, stand tall, stand strong, with love for sister in heart. And when love say, 'No!' Oh ho ho..." Gunnar grinned wildly. "Even Death know, is best for him go run and hide! Ha! Is worthy of song, no?"
Applejack wrapped her sister in a hug, tears streaming from her own eyes. She knew her sister had saved her life, but the story and the imagery brought it home again. Gunnar was right, it truly was epic. Her little sister had faced down Death itself for her.
"Hmm, maybe brother-in-law not so crazy," Gunnar said after a moment of silence. "First, filly crack Bifrost and split sky. Then, massive wolf of evil take arm of other in group, before having jaws ripped apart. Then Yggdrassil grown by third, shaking earth, causing all to fear, saying no to Death himself. Is not all right order, but all paint picture of Ragnarok story."
"Oh," Scootaloo said, looking at Celestia. "That's the end of the world thing you told us about, right Princess?"
Celestia nodded. "Yes, though I don't think we really need to fear the end times just yet."
"Ha!" Gunnar said, his voice once again cheerful and hearty. "Nor I. Is tale for old wives and small foals." Then he leaned in toward the three crusaders, and in a more serious tone continued. "But just in case, promise no big snake near tree? You see, you stop. Okay?"
The three fillies were taking things a bit more seriously than the older mares, so they all responded with an actual Pinkie Promise, leaving the Caribou chieftain confused until Twilight explained.
"Silly ponies, real oath is blood, sword, not cupcake," Gunnar chided, before remembering the parts of the story involving baked goods. "On other hoof... pony cupcakes maybe much more powerful than Gunnar realize."
Pinkie Pie was right on cue, leaping into the discussion with a tray full of cupcakes, determined to prove them the most yumtastic creations ever. Gunnar, professing doubt, said a good, stiff drink was better than a sugary confection. Then the debate really started.
As the discussion over the best form of carbohydrate binge heated up, Twilight stepped away from the fire, tapping Celestia to follow her. Once the two alicorns were far enough from the fire to not be heard, Twilight looked to her elder.
"I'm worried," she said.
"What for?"
"Those three fillies... or golems, rather. So far, we've only seen two manifest their talents, and while Gunnar may exaggerate, it's only slightly. They really did shake the heavens and earth just getting their cutie marks. I can only imagine what realm is left for Sweetie Belle to crack, shake, or destroy when she finds her own mark."
"Do you not remember what happened when you found your own talent?"
Twilight thought back to that fateful day when she hatched Spike. "Yes," she said. "Okay, that was big, I know. But not like this. No pony felt it across the sea, and I certainly didn't leave a thousand foot tree behind."
Celestia smiled. "Twilight, you grew a dragon—a magical creature that normally takes hundreds of years to mature—from an egg to larger than most castles in seconds. By accident. You also—as mere side effects—turned your parents into plants, and suspended the entire examination board—some of the most powerful unicorns around—in a field they couldn't escape from. All that, in only the few seconds before I was able to arrive and calm you down. Who knows what you might've done if left unchecked. Do you have any idea how scared we all were of you after that?"
Twilight sighed. She knew she'd frightened quite a few ponies that day, but in her mind, it had been the kind of surprise fear a pony felt when startled by a noise in the dark, not the deep, logical, profound fear of a very real threat that Celestia was describing now. The Princess had been genuinely afraid of her!
"It's okay, Twilight," Celestia said, nuzzling her. "It all turned out for the best, didn't it?"
Twilight nodded. "Yeah, I just don't think I realized what you must've felt until I started thinking the same things about these fillies myself."
"Fear is good. In small doses. It lets us stay aware of danger. You can't let it overwhelm you though." Celestia took a deep breath and continued. "I would be lying if I said I had no worries concerning the three golems. There've been no such creatures alive in even my own lifetime—at least that I'm aware of—so this is new to me as well. That's always worrisome at my age. But I think we should be grateful for the... what is it you call it, 'narrative coincidence?'" Twilight nodded. "Yes, the narrative coincidence that they've manifested as these three sweet foals here in Ponyville. If there are to be new, unknown and massively powerful forces in the world, I can think of no better place for them to be raised than amongst the love of you and your friends."
Twilight smiled at that. "You're right, Celestia. It could be much, much worse. I guess we should also be thankful that they seem to be in good control of their abilities. The massive workings they've done were, at least for the most part, deliberate it seems."
"Certainly none of them have turned a pony into a plant yet," Celestia said, grinning at her protege.
"Yes," Celestia said, cutting her off. "I will be keeping an eye on them, I assure you, and I expect you to do the same."
"Of course."
The two alicorns returned to the fireside, finding another debate in progress.
"It's a perfectly fine name!" Apple Bloom said, stamping her hoof.
"You can't be serious," Scootaloo said. "It's gotta have a cool name! Like the one in Gunnar's story!"
"But it is a cool name. Besides, it's my tree right?"
"Yellow one has good point," Gunnar said. "Her tree. She can give any name she want. Even if stupid."
"But really, Apple Bloom! It's a world tree. It could last like a thousand years, and be written about in books and stuff forever. You gotta give it a more awesome name than that!"
"Yes," Gunnar said. "Like mighty Modun!"
"Come on Sweetie," Apple Bloom said. "Help me out here."
"Hey, leave me out of this," Sweetie said, lazily examining the inner workings of her detached leg by the firelight.
"Fine! Forget all of ya'll! I named it already, and I'm stickin' with it"
Scootaloo facehooved. "You can't call a world tree 'Rupert.'"
"So now yer the boss?" Apple Bloom said. "Yer the Princess of Rupert?"
"Can't we just call it Yggdrasil?" Scootaloo said.
"No one said you have to visit Rupert."
"I am never calling it that."
"Rupert, the World Tree. Ha!" Gunnar laughed. "Stupid name. Now. In thousand years though, strong caribou and pony all named Rupert. You watch. You see."
"What are you going to do with Rupert, though?" Sweetie asked, now that the name had apparently been settled.
"Hmm..." All three of the fillies looked up at the branches high in the night sky, pondering. Then a huge grin spread across their faces and they locked eyes with each other.
"Are you girls thinking what I'm thinking?" Scootaloo asked.
The three fillies' then yelled out in unison, "Cutie Mark Crusaders: World Treehouse Headquarters!" as they performed a three-way hoofbump.
Princess Celestia leaned over and whispered to Twilight. "And you were worried they might abuse their power!"
"You want me to do what?" Apple Bloom looked at Sweetie Belle like she was crazy. Apple Bloom had taken a set of tools over to the boutique the next day, and the two were sitting in Sweetie's room, trying to repair her leg.
"Just pull the rest of the skin off!" Sweetie said. When the wolf had ripped her leg off, it had torn and damaged most of the covering that passed for "skin" over her skeleton, as well as the underlying rubberish material that gave it shape. What currently remained on the detached limb was shredded pretty badly, the only remaining tatters down near the hoof looking ragged at best. Sweetie had spent quite some time examining her own inner workings and learned that the various flesh-like stuff could be regrown, albeit slowly; an entire leg would take months. Thankfully though, it was almost entirely cosmetic.
"Oh just give it to me!" she said. Taking the limb in her field, and steeling herself for the pain, she pulled away the remaining bits of fetlock. "Ow!"
"Wait, you felt that?"
"Yeah, it seems that even when it's not connected, it's still me."
Apple Bloom shook her head at that. "I don't think I wanna know what it must be like up in yer head."
Sweetie completed the flensing and returned the limb to Apple Bloom. "So what do you think?"
"Well," Apple Bloom said, looking closely at the damaged portions. "I think ya got lucky. There's a couple bent parts here an' there, but for the most part, seems it mostly snapped rivets and pins when it tossed ya."
Sweetie looked closer. Mechanical stuff wasn't her forte, but considering she was made of mechanical stuff, it was probably a good idea to learn. "I think I know what a pin is, but what's a rivet?"
Apple Bloom spent the next half hour pointing out the basic mechanical components she could identify in the leg, explaining their purpose to Sweetie Belle while the two cooperated with tools and magic to repair things. Sweetie was glad to find that she understood most of it. Her linkages weren't difficult, but there was a lot of jargon to learn.
"So," Sweetie said, sometime later. "If I just slide it through there, then kind of squish it, it stays in place, right?"
"Exactly!" Apple Bloom said. "I think that's the last rivet too, at least that I can see. Ya got a lot of mechanisms in there going to yer lower hoof, and I still have no idea what some of 'em do. Still though, try standin' on it."
Sweetie Belle slid to the edge of the bed, and extended the naked mechanical leg. Placing it on the floor, it seemed to hold up with a bit of weight, so she rolled off and stood on her three good legs, then lowered it again. Lifting her other forehoof, the repaired limb seemed to have no problem taking her full weight.
"Okay," Apple Bloom said. "Try out the range of movement. Twist everythin' all over the place."
Sweetie did as she asked, raising the hoof, bending the elbow, fetlock, and other joints every direction she could. Everything felt correct, save that she couldn't quite point her hoof as far as she expected.
"Hmm..." Apple Bloom said, after the problem was explained. The filly took the hoof and looked closely into the exposed mechanisms. A lot of it was hidden by the external shell of the hoof itself, preventing her from getting a good look at the lowest components inside the shell. Apple Bloom had a guess at what was wrong, though.
"Raise your hoof and go like this," she said, raising her own hoof over her head and shaking it like she was in an angry mob.
"Umm..." Sweetie Belle said. "If you say so." She raised her hoof, pretending to play the maracas, and was rewarded by a small pellet hitting her on the head. "What was that?" she said.
"Yup," Apple Bloom said, bending to the floor to retrieve the fallen debris. "A sheared rivet."
"Hmm," Sweetie said, flexing her hoof again and finding full extension. "That was it."
"I thought so."
"Great! Thanks Apple Bloom. Now I just need to trim the rest of this."
Apple Bloom watched as Sweetie Belle used her fields to cut and remove even more "flesh" from above the site of the injury, leveling it out to be a symmetrical cuff of skin and fur ending just above her elbow.
"There," Sweetie said, using a towel to daub away the few remaining drops of her blue circulatory fluid. "Much better."
"So..." Apple Bloom said. "Ya got any ideas what to use for skin or bandages over the rest of this bare metal?"
"Actually, I was thinking I should just leave it like this for now."
"What? Really?"
"Yeah, why not?"
Apple Bloom had to think for a minute on that one. "Well, it's just weird, Sweetie."
"We're golems created from wish-filled cupcakes who bleed magic. Go ahead, explain what 'weird' is again."
"Oh, Sweetie, I don't mean it like that. I just mean ponies are gonna look at ya all strange."
"Yeah, so?"
"Ya really want everypony—includin' Diamond and Silver—to know what ya really are?"
"Come on, AB. Everypony in town can see that giant tree, and I'll bet that by tomorrow, there won't be a pony in town that hasn't heard the story too. It's not like we can keep things a secret."
"Yeah, but that don't mean ya have to let 'em know yer actually made of metal and stuff."
Sweetie sighed. "What if I don't want to hide it? What if I want everypony to know?"
"Why would ya want that?"
"I think," Sweetie said, "I spent so many years afraid to be myself—afraid to sing when I wanted to, afraid to have everypony looking at me—that I don't want do that again. This," she said, holding up the gleaming, bared metal skeleton of her foreleg and hoof, "is who I am. I just want to be myself."
Apple Bloom couldn't argue with that. "Okay, Sweetie, I can understand that," she said, smiling at her friend before pointing back at the bare hoof. "Yer still gonna get rocks and dirt all in that thing though."
"Yeah, you're right," Sweetie agreed, looking down at the cup-like shell that formed the hoof. "Hmm... I've got an idea."
Apple Bloom saw only the briefest flash from inside the hoof cup. "Let me guess," she said. "Ya just invented and cast some sorta rock and dirt repellent spell on yer leg, right?"
"Something like that," Sweetie said, grinning. She was rather glad that being "just herself" also involved being quite adept at unicorn magic.
----
Sweetie Belle thought Apple Bloom's cuteceanera later that week had been at least as fun as Scootaloo's. Thankfully, Apple Bloom had less of a vindictive streak, and didn't invite Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon. The party had just been one solid, fun evening, with nearly all the foals from class celebrating. Most of them did look at her bared metal leg quite weirdly at first, but after the initial questions, seemed to accept it and move on to cake and punch quite readily. A few, including Scootaloo, actually thought it was quite cool. For the most part though, all the attention was on Apple Bloom, or related to the giant tree in the distance, as well as the story of That Day.
Rupert was now a fixture on the landscape, visible from any part of Ponyville. Everypony in town had quickly heard the story, passing it from neighbor to neighbor as they cleaned up broken windows and other glass. Most didn't seem to mind too much. They were used to this sort of thing by now. It seemed that every other week some minor—or ursa minor—disaster hit the town. Knowing this one had been the result of Apple Bloom saving the life of her sister, a little broken glass seemed a trivial price to pay. Besides, anything was better than that time when Derpy had accidentally brought a sharknado though the place.
So, for a few days, the Crusaders found themselves celebrities everywhere they went, getting thanks for saving the town's favorite farm pony, and being hounded with questions about the giant tree in the distance. The fervor quickly died down however. No matter how amazing, ponies can get used to anything pretty easily. After the curiosity wore off, the massive tree on the horizon didn't influence their everyday lives much more than the mountains beyond it.
The awe lasted a bit longer among the foals in town, their sense of wonder not yet squelched by quite as much cynicism as the adults. Even it faded pretty quickly after a week of hearing the story retold almost constantly. They all knew that Apple Bloom had somehow grown the thing, but on a day to day basis back in front of them, the most impressive thing she could do was grow a few flowers. In that sense, and especially among the adults in town—most of whom she didn't see regularly like the foals in class—Sweetie herself remained more of a curiosity in the long run than either Apple Bloom or Scootaloo. Her injured leg was an obvious and immediate strangeness to the ponies she encountered, and, curiously enough, she found she kind of liked it.
Exploring those feelings one night, tossing and turning in bed, Sweetie thought about the reactions she was getting. The reality was that she actually liked her leg without flesh on it. Well, not the lack of it directly, but what it reminded her of. She'd had her leg ripped off by a dire timberwolf, and that was only a minor inconvenience. For any other pony, it would've been a horrible tragedy at best, or death at worst. Not for her though. She'd spent an entire evening around a campfire, listening to a retelling of how Apple Bloom had faced down Death itself, all the while idly poking and prodding at her own dismembered limb with no more concern than if it were an oddly shaped branch. Every time a pony had seen her, either that night, or in town since then, they reacted with mild shock at the sheer "otherness" of it. It gave her a strange chill each time, one she'd quickly grown to enjoy.
Maybe Apple Bloom was right, she thought. Maybe it was weird, and perhaps she was overcompensating. Her earlier stage fright problems had kept her from wanting to be the center of any attention at all. Now, her injury and nature made her the center of attention instantly, and it was... well, it was fun. Perhaps that was what she was missing. Months ago, she'd told Apple Bloom that her magic was just "there" and it wasn't so much fun, as it was a normal thing. Now, with her pistons and struts exposed, there was this low level thrill at simply letting everypony see her true self.
So what if it was overcompensating? That was her choice. She'd spent years hiding her love of singing, hiding her personality in general, just to avoid the spotlight. What harm would there be in going a little bit to the other side for a while? She'd learned to sing in public, and loved every minute of it. If she found some small joy in showing that she was not quite a normal pony, that wasn't much different, was it? No. She thought. No worse than that mare at the diner with six earrings in one ear.
----
The next week, the Crusaders were putting the finishing touches on their new treehouse. It'd taken a bit of convincing for Applejack to let her sister start building a clubhouse a thousand feet in the sky, given that trees, by their very nature, didn't have safety rails or properly inspected staircases. Apple Bloom had eventually won the argument though, with the simple logic that it still had to be safer than the ground, as that's apparently where hundred foot high timberwolves roamed.
The design wasn't particularly complex, though it was a bit more extravagant than their previous clubhouse. Nor were there issues with securing the structure to the tree—plenty of the branches would've been large enough for the foundations of an actual mansion. No, the actual problem was getting a thousand feet into the sky.
Scootaloo had no problem getting up there of course, and Sweetie could teleport. Their help had been invaluable in the actual construction, and Apple Bloom herself found she could grow vines as hoofholds and climb directly if she had to. However, she was determined there should be a way for anypony to reach the clubhouse without assistance.
"If this is gonna be our headquarters," she said, "then it needs to be somethin' everypony can get to. What if Babs comes to visit, or we get new members? We're still the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Just because we get our own marks don't mean we stop helpin' others."
To that end, she'd spent the better part of a week slowly growing branches in a spiral staircase up the trunk. Then, to mollify Applejack, she'd spent another two days growing posts and stringing ropes between them to make a safety railing all the way to the top.
After that, all three had helped take apart the old clubhouse and move things to the top of Rupert. They had to bring in a lot of new lumber as well, since the new design was quite a bit larger. Not all of the old clubhouse could be recycled either, but the trio had agreed that keeping a sort of continuity by using what they could of it just felt right. They'd also had to bring in some heavier, proper-house-type doors and windows, as the altitude meant the new headquarters was more exposed to the elements.
When all was said and done though, the Cutie Mark Crusaders found themselves with a clubhouse that was very nearly an actual house, albeit a spartan one. They'd held a grand opening, complete with ribbon cutting, but the only non-Crusader in attendance had been Applejack, who'd quickly turned the ceremony into an impromptu building inspection. After stomping around for several minutes, bucking key bits of wall, roof, and floor, the farm mare finally seemed convinced that Scootaloo's participation had indeed been restricted to nothing more structural than paint. Satisfied that the construction was solid—even if the paint was already flaking off—she agreed that the fillies could spend the night in their new clubhouse, and the Crusaders all rushed to their respective homes to gather sleepover essentials.
A while later, the three fillies sat on the back porch, watching the sunset. Apple Bloom and Sweetie had designed the layout so the large porch hung well beyond the nearby supporting branches, giving a mostly uninterrupted view to a large chunk of the horizon, as well as straight down. Scootaloo, of course, had no problem with heights. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom seemed to handle it fine as well, but then the wind started.
No matter how stalwart a tree, they all swayed when the wind was strong enough. From the ground, a pony couldn't even tell. The deflection was less than a degree. But for a tree as tall as Rupert, that still meant movements could be twenty feet or more in an arc. However, the sheer mass meant it was a slow, steady movement, like being on a very large ship in relatively mild seas, and posed little danger to the structure or the ponies inside it. The same could not be said for the inner ears of said ponies though, and the two wingless fillies quickly found themselves a bit less comfortable standing next to a thousand foot drop, regardless of railings, nearby friendly pegasi, or magical teleportation abilities.
"I think I'm gonna go back inside," Apple Bloom said, stepping away from the railing.
"Yeah, me too," Sweetie Belle agreed, not happy with how her sense of "up" was constantly moving.
Scootaloo teased. "It's just a little wind!" Seeing her friends weren't going to be persuaded, she followed them inside.
While the swaying was still quite noticeable, it didn't feel nearly as unnerving with solid walls on all sides.
"Well, this is gonna take some gettin' used to," Apple Bloom said. "I never figured I'd need sea legs a thousand feet up in the sky."
"Ugh, yeah..." Sweetie agreed, as she limped toward the sleeping bags. "I hope it's not this windy all the time."
Scootaloo laughed. "Oh, you'll get used to it. Besides, if you think this is bad, you should spend a week in Cloudsdale in the windy season. The entire city sways worse than this."
"Ya know, I'd never thought about that..." Apple Bloom said, interrupted as the sway reversed at the end of an arc, causing her eyes to go wide at the sensation.
"Look on the bright side," Scootaloo added. "At least we've got a tree under us, so we're only going side to side. Cloudsdale is really fun sometimes, with microbursts and updrafts. Imagine this, but like, ten times worse, and going up and down at the same time."
The other two fillies glared at the pegasus. "I'd really rather not," Sweetie said, before sitting down and rubbing her injured hoof. Apple Bloom nodded in agreement, and also sat down, wanting to avoid adding the sway of her own legs to that of the treehouse itself.
Scootaloo stayed on her hooves and was enjoying herself, trotting around to admire the views out each window. While it wasn't quite the same as a proper cloud house, she was still way up in the sky, comfortable and warm, and the solid flooring meant her two friends could be here as well. What could be better, she thought, looking around and appreciating their new headquarters. "Hey Apple Bloom," she said, her eyes lighting on the trophies. "I just saw what you did with the new trophy shelf. That's pretty smart!"
"Huh?" Apple Bloom said, not sure what her friend was referring to. It couldn't just be the fact that she used more than one nail at each end, could it?
"Those little rails you put around the edges. That's brilliant, keeps our trophies from falling off when this place really gets moving in the wind!"
"Uh, thanks. That's exactly what I was thinkin'," Apple Bloom lied, having never actually anticipated this much swaying. The rails had instead been to keep Scootaloo herself from knocking things off the shelf every time she went to align, adjust, admire, or otherwise accost the awards. In light of the current conditions, she was glad the rails were there for either hazard though.
Thankfully, the wind died down not too long after sunset proper, and all three of the fillies went back to being excited about their new headquarters, dreaming and planning all the things they could do with it.
As the sky outside moved toward complete darkness, Apple Bloom got up to go light the lanterns.
"Hey Bloom," Sweetie interrupted, favoring her injured hoof and moving toward the windows. "Wait just a minute." Looking out, she stared across the dark landscape toward the faint lights of Ponyville, and off in the distance, those glowing in the castle and city of Canterlot.
"Wow, it sure is pretty," Apple Bloom said, joining her at the window.
Even the normally less than sentimental pegasus had to agree. "Yeah, it really is. From way up here, some of those lights almost look like stars if you squint. Makes me wonder what'd it be like flying up above the sky at night, instead of day. Would the lights on the ground look just the same as the stars in the sky?"
"You know," Sweetie said, shifting on her hooves. "If you squint like you said, you can't really see the ground in the dark, and you can almost imagine that you're floating with nothing but stars out there, both above and below."
The other fillies tried it, agreeing the effect was quite mesmerizing, and just staring into the darkness for several minutes, before Apple Bloom finally moved to light the lanterns again.
As the glow filled the clubhouse, Sweetie turned away from the window, and limped back to the center of the room to unroll her sleeping bag near the others. Moving to lay down, she let out a distinct "ow."
"Sweetie?" Apple Bloom looked at her friend with concern. "What's wrong?"
"My hoof's just been feeling weird for the past couple of days."
"The injured one?"
"Yeah. I thought it was just something related to the injury itself, but it's been getting worse."
"Where's it hurt, exactly?"
"That's just it." Sweetie stretched her stripped leg and hoof out in front of her as she lay on the sleeping bag. "It doesn't really hurt most of the time, it just feels... wrong somehow. Only when I accidentally put weight on it in certain ways does it actually hurt."
"I tried to tell ya. Ya probably got somethin' else stuck in it."
"Hmm," Sweetie looked closely, peering inside as far as she could between the linkages going into the cup of the hoof, before examining things further with her internal magic, and finding something really, really odd. "I don't think that's the problem, AB."
There was a bright flash. "What was that?" Scootaloo asked, catching a whiff of ozone.
"I need to get this thing off," Sweetie Belle said, beginning to tug at her hoof with a magical field. Now that she'd cut a few of the retaining pins, it gave way with only a slight pop, and she set the hoof shell aside, wiggling the "bones" that had been within.
"Sweetie!" Apple Bloom said, shocked by the odd sight. "What in the world?"
Sweetie ignored her. Flexing things again, she dislodged a large splinter of wood that had apparently been stuck deep inside the workings. Setting the splinter aside, she looked closer at the the workings of her limb, and quickly realized that the "bones" themselves were definitely not arranged as one would expect in a normal pony's hoof. They were not quite lined up like she'd expected from her internal magical sense either though. No matter. Most of the pieces in her structure were highly adjustable, as she'd first discovered back when she'd merely extended her legs to absurd lengths. She'd learned much finer levels of control since then, and so as she concentrated with her eyes closed, the various pieces grew and shrank, restructuring to correct and finalize the previously incomplete layout into a more useful appendage.
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both sat slack jawed, watching in a mild state of shock as Sweetie tore apart and reconfigured her own hoof. "Oh my gosh..." Scootaloo said, as the unicorn opened her eyes, seemingly finished. "Did you just do what I think you did?"
Sweetie held her foreleg up in front of her, wiggling the new digits at the end. It'd taken more adjustments than she thought to get it to feel right, but the movement was spot on. "I think so, Scoots," she said, grinning. "At least, I think it's what I think you think I did."
"Quit foolin' around, Sweetie," Apple Bloom said, her voice full of seriousness. "That's a paw! You turned yer hoof into a paw!"
"Yeah, well, I think it's more like I just finished it is all. It's still missing something though."
"Why would ya do somethin' like that?" Apple Bloom said, still in shock.
"Well, at least now I won't get rocks stuck in the cup of that hoof, right?" Sweetie was flexing the toes, contemplating how to fix things up properly.
"Gah!" Scootaloo said, flinching at the independently moving toes. "Do you have any idea how weird that looks?"
"Not really," Sweetie said, picking up the discarded hoof cup in her field and heating it. "How weird would you say it looks?"
"Weird, Sweetie. Really weird!"
"Yeah, you're right," she said, as the former hoof melted into a glowing orb of levitated metal. "It does look weird."
"Okay, so... you'll undo it?" Apple Bloom said, looking her friend in the eyes pleadingly.
"No," Sweetie said, separating a small bit of molten metal from the larger blob. "I just need to fix it." Concentrating, she brought the small blob to the tip of one toe, and used her field to shape it into a small, slightly curved cone. The process then repeated for the other toes.
"There, that's more like it!" she said, wiggling the new claws in front of each of her friends in turn. "Better, right?"
"Not really," Apple Bloom said, leaning back from the weird mechanical digits. "Come on Sweetie, put yer hoof back how it was."
"No."
"Seriously, Sweetie, yer gonna freak everypony out. Put it back."
"No."
"Why not? Why do you want a paw?"
"Oh come on Apple Bloom," Sweetie said, grinning again as she wiggled her toes. "You're the famous pony who said 'no' to Death itself. Can't I at least say 'no' to a hoof?"
"You're worryin' me, Sweetie Belle. Please just be serious for a moment."
Sweetie stopped her teasing and let her limb drop. "I'm sorry, Bloom. You too Scoots. I didn't mean to scare anypony."
Apple Bloom sighed. "It's okay, Sweetie."
"Yeah," Scootaloo said. "I'm not scared. But that thing is like, really weird. What the heck happened?"
"I think," Sweetie said, levitating the splinter that had been lodged in her former hoof. "When that timberwolf bit my leg, it got a bit of a tooth or something stuck in there."
"How's that end up with you getting a paw?"
"Well, remember that night after the attack, Twilight told us how she thought timberwolves were basically some type of golem? Well, I think she's right. I think somehow, some bit of the magic animating the wolf got stuck in this splinter here."
"But how's that possible?" Apple Bloom said. "Whenever anypony else killed one of them things, it just turned into perfectly normal dead trees once the magic left it."
"I don't know... maybe it has something to do with the way you turned that one into this giant, very-much-not-dead tree we're in. Or maybe it was my own golem magic that kept powering it somehow. Either way, I think remnants of its magic leaked from the splinter, and started adjusting the nearby pieces of my hoof to match the timberwolf pattern, instead of my own."
"Well, that makes sense I guess," Apple Bloom said. "But why would ya go and finish the job, instead of fixin' it?"
Sweetie was holding up the new paw again, flexing the toes and claws in front of her own eyes, admiring the design of it. "I don't know, it just feels right somehow. It's... interesting." She continued examining things closely when Scootaloo spoke up.
"You know, it does look kind of cool," the pegasus said. "Once you get used to it a bit."
Apple Bloom took a deep breath. "Ya know me, Sweetie. I couldn't care less if ya have a hoof, a paw, or whatever. I'll be yer friend no matter what. But that thing is weird, and ya know it. On top of that, you pretty much just said you got it from being infected with the magic of the same monster that tried to kill my sister and the rest of us. Why in the world would ya want to keep it?"
"Okay, Apple Bloom. That's fair enough." Sweetie paused, remembering back to That Day, when she'd realized she had to kill the wolf to save her friends. "I can't blame you if you hate that timberwolf for what it did, but I've felt bad about killing it ever since it happened. Now, maybe there's like this little piece of it that didn't completely die. Something I can hold onto that'll remind me of what I can do... what I did do when I ended a life. It's like I owe it something, like it's the right thing to do."
Looking her two closest friends in the eyes in turn, Sweetie sighed, knowing she needed to be completely honest now.
"There's another side to it as well," she continued, thinking now about the way ponies looked at her differently since her injury. "It's not just the memento. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't some selfish component to it as well. Do you remember when you helped me reattach my leg, and were surprised when I wanted to leave it bare?"
Apple Bloom nodded as her friend continued. "Well, I meant what I said, about wanting to be myself in front of everypony. It's more than that however. In the time since then, I've been around town with this mechanical leg obvious to everyone. I get weird looks from all over, but I actually like it. I like being different, knowing no pony can ever just dismiss me as normal. Rarity told me once that a lot of ponies go through a rebellious phase as they grow up. Maybe that's what this is. I don't know. I just know that it's... well, it's fun!"
"Fun?" Apple Bloom said, a look of incredulity on her face.
"Yeah. I know it's weird. But that's part of the excitement I think."
"Sure, but I don't understand why ya would want that kind of excitement."
"You know how everypony was in awe of you that night, after you saved Applejack? Remember how you felt, sitting around the fire as we retold things? Everypony there was awestruck with the amazing feat you'd accomplished, both saving your sister, and spawning a world tree. All of them knew how amazingly unique you are."
"Yeah," Apple Bloom said, remembering the warm glow of pride. "I can understand that. Ya want to be recognized."
"It's more than just that. I realized that night that I can do pretty much anything I want. Everypony says that, of course, but by 'anything' they mean they can get a dream job, meet the right stallion, and maybe take a vacation to Prance. But for me, I mean anything. I sliced a hundred foot high timberwolf in half! I could teleport to Prance right now if I wanted. I'm pretty sure I could swim across the ocean without taking a breath, or tap dance in an active volcano if the mood struck me, too. But I'm not going to do most of those things, at least not in very visible ways. In fact, I really hope I don't ever have to really use my abilities to their fullest. I never want to kill another creature, even a timberwolf, and I definitely hope I never end up having to save a dying pony like you did."
Apple Bloom nodded. "I can't blame ya there. I never want to see another pony I love lyin' there dying either."
"Right. I don't want to be in the middle when important things like lives are on the line. No sane pony should ever want that. I mean, I won't run from trouble, but I don't want it seeking me out either. But then, if there's not an important reason for it, anything major I do with my abilities becomes just so much showboating." Sweetie smiled and turned to her winged friend. "You know I love you, Scootaloo, but I'm not like you and Rainbow Dash when it comes to showing off."
Scootaloo nodded, smiling to let Sweetie know she didn't take offense. "But isn't walking around with a mechanical paw showboating as well?" she said.
"I guess. Kind of. But it's passive. I'm not saying, 'look at me.' I just am something to look at."
"I don't know, Sweetie. Sounds pretty similar to me."
"Yeah, maybe. But as soon as I realized what was going on with my hoof, I just got this idea that it might be better—more unique and interesting—to finish it out than to try and undo it. Maybe that's showboating, or maybe it's just a tiny bit of the timberwolf's magic making me remember it more fondly. Either way, the fact that everypony else will find it weird if I have toes is more of a side effect. If I undid it now, or hid it somehow, it'd feel like I wasn't being true to myself. I know it's weird, and maybe it's stupid and rebellious and whatever else, but... it's my choice." Sweetie looked between her two friends again before continuing. "I know I keep bringing this up, but I spent years afraid to sing in front of other ponies before I finally got over it, thanks to those lessons with Fluttershy. She has this plaque on the wall at her house, it says, 'Tibi ipsi esto fidelis' and I asked her one day what it means. 'To thine own self be true,' she explained, and that's just stuck with me ever since. I could never go back to hiding my voice. But this..." Sweetie held up the paw for emphasis. "This is part of who I am too."
Apple Bloom thought she could understand that. Even if the logic was nearly as weird as the paw itself. "Okay, Sweetie. Good enough. Just promise me one thing."
"Yeah, AB, anything."
"If ya start growing any more wolf parts," Apple Bloom said, smiling. "Ya talk to me or Scoots right away, got it?"
"Heheh, yeah!" Scootaloo said, pausing to scratch her chin in thought. "Although... You would look pretty awesome with a bunch of sharp teeth and a shaggy tail."
Sweetie Belle laughed. "I promise, you'll be the first to know if that happens. Besides, I don't think Fluttershy would let me anywhere near her animals in that case, and you know how much I love those singing lessons!"
The three fillies all laughed, before Scootaloo demanded a promise of her own. "Okay," Sweetie said. "I suppose it's only fair you get one too. What is it?"
Grinning mischievously, Scootaloo said. "I get to be there to see the look on Rarity's face when she finds out about this!"
Later that week, Sweetie was wrapping up another lesson with Fluttershy. The yellow pegasus hadn't seemed shocked at all by Sweetie's new paw. In fact, Fluttershy had taken a close interest in it, amazed to see the joints and everything else in action, and even pointing out where several of the middle pieces didn't quite match those of a real canine foot.
After saying her goodbyes, Sweetie Belle was singing a simple tune, happy as could be with the glorious spring weather as she trotted back to town after the time she'd spent with the kind pegasus and her animals. Then they happened.
Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were walking up the road toward her, and moved to block her from passing.
"Hey, gimpy!' Diamond said in her usual mocking tone. "You gonna be a pirate next talent show?"
"Yeah, pegleg!" Silver chimed in. "Or are ya turnin' into a dog?"
"Oh, maybe she's a scurvy sea dog?"
Sweetie felt time slow down. Or maybe her thoughts just sped up. She still wasn't sure quite how that ability worked. The result, at least from her perspective, was the same though. She had all the time in the world. The question was, what to do with it.
These two troublemakers had been harassing her and her friends—as well as the rest of the foals at school—for years. In her previous encounters with the duo, before she'd discovered the extent of her abilities, she'd always been shy. The mocking the two delivered just made her want to tuck her tail and run, avoiding any undue attention. Now though, there was something different.
For one, she was now possibly the most powerful unicorn—or unicorn-like golem—in the world. With the power in her magic, she could slice them in two faster than she had the wolf. That'd be messy, though. She could vaporize them, of course, letting them evaporate into whiffs of hydrogen, ozone, and carbon monoxide. She could flay them, boil their blood, or crush them like they'd been hit by a train. Scaling down from there, she could snap a few bones, or set their tails on fire, causing only some temporary pain. She could even just fuse their hooves together, turn them plaid, and hang them from the weathervane on top of the schoolhouse to be mocked. Skipping magic entirely, she could simply scratch them with her new claws, or push them into the muddy ditch beside the road. She could do anything, and for her, "anything" was a much larger set of options than for most any other pony in existence.
But there was a second, much more important thing which was different now as well. Sweetie had come to know herself. She knew who she truly was. That's where real power came from, and what bullies exploited when they found it lacking. They dug at insecurities they could sense in others, mocking them and teasing even the slightest of differences, no matter how trivial. But Sweetie Belle realized now, in this clear moment, that power was lost forever to these two, at least over her.
What she knew about herself was that it wasn't in her to be mean or vindictive. Because of that, she knew she never would do any of those awful things, even though she could. When she'd killed the timberwolf, it had been a last resort—the only way to save her friends. Even then, she'd taken care to make sure the creature suffered as little as possible. That creature, vicious though it may have been, actually deserved more respect than the two fillies before her in a way. It was a beast, operating on instinct, and likely diseased. It may have had no idea what it was doing.
These two however, did things with actual intent to cause direct harm, albeit on a small and reversible scale. As such, it was strangely harder to sympathize with them than the monstrous creature that had ripped her own leg off. Still though, she felt bad for them. She wondered what must've happened in their lives to make them so miserable. What must it be like to live a life where lashing out and mocking others is the only way you've found to interact with other ponies? Sweetie found that, despite their flaws, she could only feel sorry for the two. She had the best friends in the world, a loving family, and everything else that mattered. She had to assume that, as much as they seemed cold and heartless on the outside, these two must have it so much worse than anypony imagined to always lash out like they do, and they really just needed a friend. So, she did the only thing she could.
She hugged them.
----
"You did what?" Apple Bloom said, after meeting up with Sweetie and Scootaloo in the treehouse for another sleepover.
"I hugged them both, and invited them to come see our new headquarters!"
"Those two? Seriously?" Scootaloo said, sounding a bit miffed herself.
"Well, you invited them to your cutecenera."
"That was different. I wanted them to see how awesome I was."
"Well, I'm being sincere about it. I really hope they come visit sometime."
"But... Why?" Apple Bloom said. "Ya know those two are always just makin' trouble and bein' mean."
"I don't know, I think maybe they just need friends."
"But we tried bein' their friends," Apple Bloom said. "It didn't work!"
"Did you really try, though?"
"Yeah," Scootaloo said. "Like AB said, it didn't work with those two!"
"So you tried being friends the same way you tried to fly?"
Scootaloo looked at Sweetie Belle while trying to think of a retort, but Sweetie just continued.
"When you couldn't fly, you kept trying. You kept trying longer and harder than any pegasus I've ever heard of. You didn't give up. And Apple Bloom," Sweetie said, turning to the earth pony. "How hard did you try? Did you try as hard as you did to save your sister?"
"Sweetie," Apple Bloom said. "That ain't the same thing..."
"It is!" Sweetie Belle said, more determined than ever now to get her point across. "It is the same thing! You can't give up on something just because it's hard; not if it's the right thing to do."
Scootaloo and Apple Bloom both laid their ears flat at the chastisement. Sweetie took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before she continued.
"Look, I know it's hard. Diamond and Silver are mean. They've teased us all for years. But when they got in my way yesterday, something just clicked. What if, instead of seeing them only as the mean bullies they always act like, we try to assume the best? I really think that, underneath it all, they're just lonely and sad. We should be the bigger ponies, and reach out to help them, even if it means we have to keep trying over and over."
"Assume the best?" Scootaloo said. "What if what's underneath is even worse?"
"How much worse could it be?" Sweetie said jokingly. "I mean, what're they going to do, call you chicken and attack you with a giant timberwolf?"
Scootaloo laughed, and Apple Bloom chuckled as well.
"That's my point," Sweetie said. "I don't think they can hurt us anymore. After what we've seen and done, a few insults from a couple of spoiled brats is just a joke. But it's not a joke if we can actually help two fillies become better ponies, right?"
"Yeah," Apple Bloom said, nodding sincerely now. "If it were any other ponies, I wouldn't have questioned ya wanting to make friends. But yer right, we need to assume the best in everypony, even those two. Maybe we'll end up helpin' some other foals too, if we can get those bullies to quit teasin' everypony."
The two then looked at Scootaloo.
"Okay," she said. "I'm in. Trying to be friends with them can't be any harder than rocket science."
"What's a 'rocket'?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Tell you later. I think you'll love it!"
"Okay!" Sweetie said, putting her hoof out. "On three?"
The other fillies put their hooves in as well, and on three shouted, "Cutie Mark Crusaders: Friendship Initiators!"
----
Later that night, long after the moon had reached its zenith, the Crusaders were awoken by the sounds of howling.
"What was that?" Apple Bloom said, the first to fully wake up. Looking at the windows, she could see the sky bright with a nearly full moon, shining on nearby branches, but not even a hint of dawn. She was about to roll over and go back to sleep when she heard another howl. "You girls hear that?"
Rubbing her eyes, Sweetie looked up from her sleeping bag. "What's going on, Bloom?"
Another howl served as an answer.
Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom both got up and went to look out the windows as the howling continued. While the moon lit the orchard and the forest in the distance, it did little to reveal details on the ground from the altitude of the treehouse. Sweetie opened the door and walked onto the back porch.
The chill night air whipped into the headquarters, causing the still sleeping Scootaloo to roll over and pull her sleeping bag tight around her head. "Come on, Scootaloo, get up," Apple Bloom said, nudging the pegasus with a hoof. The gesture was ignored like the wind though, and Apple Bloom went to the porch to join Sweetie.
The next howls sounded much louder without glass and doors in the way, and combined with a well timed gust of wind. Scootaloo leapt out of bed with a shriek.
"What the hay was that?" she said a moment later, hovering near the ceiling in the far corner.
Apple Bloom turned to look inside from the porch, and explained what they were hearing. Joining them on the porch as the howls continued, Scootaloo leaned over the railing. "Sounds like they're coming from right below us."
"Yeah, I was thinkin' the same thing," Apple Bloom said.
"You think it's more timberwolves?"
"I'd say that's a fair bet."
The howls, which had been singular and intermittent, now sang together, multiple voices joined in a chorus.
"Yeah," Apple Bloom said. "It's eerie. Gives me goosebumps."
"I think it's beautiful," Sweetie Belle said. "They sound so incredibly sad, yet they're still singing."
The other two looked over at the unicorn. She was sitting on her haunches, nose up, eyes closed, letting the moonlight wash over her as she listened. The sounds struck a chord deep inside her, bringing back the guilt she felt for killing the timberwolf. She was glad she'd saved her friends, of course, but in the time since, her mind kept returning to that moment, thinking there must've been some other way. Even though it had been trying... no... that's not right, she thought. The timberwolf was a living creature, not a thing. "She" was the pronoun. Even though she had been trying to kill Sweetie too, the timberwolf still deserved better. She was probably only protecting herself, or maybe these others howling below. It probably wasn't her fault that she'd gotten in a fight with Applejack and Winona. But at the end, there was no other option. It was her or Scootaloo.
Tears began to form in Sweetie's eyes as the other two watched. "I think they knew the one I killed," Sweetie said, when a lull in the howling came a moment later. Opening her eyes, she turned to her friends. "I think they're here for her."
Not sure what to do, Apple Bloom responded with a shrug. "I'm not sure that's how they even think, Sweetie."
"Yeah, Sweetie," Scootaloo added. "I'm sure they're just howling because the moon's out and stuff."
The unicorn stood, walking back inside the clubhouse. "I don't think so," she said, retrieving the splinter she'd found in her hoof during the previous sleepover. "They're mourning. I have to let them say goodbye. I have to go apologize."
"Whadaya mean?" Apple Bloom said. "You're not going down there, are you?"
"I am."
"That's crazy!" Scootaloo said, moving to block the front door.
"It's okay, Scootaloo," Sweetie said. "Don't worry, I don't think they mean to hurt anypony." And with that, she disappeared in a flash of light.
Facehooving, Scootaloo turned and flew out the door, as Apple Bloom made for the long staircase behind her.
Sweetie Belle wasn't stupid. She'd teleported to the lower part of the staircase, rather than all the way down, giving her the chance to survey things and descend the last dozen yards on hoof. She saw three timberwolves a small ways out from the trunk. They were small—for timberwolves—each standing maybe just a bit larger than Celestia. They were sitting in a rough circle, facing one another, snouts held high to the moon and branches. As she descended, the howling stopped and they turned to watch her. With each step, they appeared to get more nervous, green eyes glowing brighter, lips curling to reveal sharp fangs. She could feel their tension, their nervousness at this unknown intruder. It was only natural that they'd respond this way.
The thump of hooves on wood sounded behind Sweetie Belle, and the wolves began to growl. Sweetie turned and saw Scootaloo had landed a little ways above her on the spiral staircase. As the pegasus got sight of the wolves, her eyes widened, but she started to descend anyway. The wolves growled as she did, and Sweetie quickly held up a hoof, telling her to stop. As she did so though, louder hoofsteps sounded from above, and Scootaloo was quickly joined by Apple Bloom.
"Girls, please. Stop," Sweetie said, pleading quietly with her friends.
Looking at the glowing eyes and growling jaws behind their friend, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were reluctant to agree.
"Please," Sweetie continued. "I have to do this. Trust me."
Trust. The two knew they couldn't afford to lose trust in their friend. Even if she was acting a bit crazy, well...
Apple Bloom thought back to when she'd first brought a knife to their clubhouse, relying on her friends not to desert her after she told them her weird story, hoping they'd trust her, and not think she was crazy. She had to do the same for Sweetie now. "Okay, Sweetie," she said.
Scootaloo thought along similar lines, remembering the trust her friends put in her nearly every time she came up with some convoluted stunt to earn their marks. Then there were all the times they'd blindly hopped into the wagon and let her drag them throughout town at insane speeds. Sweetie had earned her trust, and so Scootaloo stopped her descent, nodding in acquiescence.
Smiling, Sweetie turned to face the timberwolves. The trio was still growling lowly, and were stalking slowly toward the base of the stairs. Sweetie took a few hesitant steps down the stairs to meet them. With each step she made, the wolves would growl or otherwise show their nervousness. Using what she'd learned working with Fluttershy, Sweetie knew to take it slow, let the creatures get used to each movement. The important thing was not to surprise them. This let her slowly descend without provoking an attack. When she got to within a dozen steps of the bottom, the wolves had reached the base of the stairs themselves. Each time she tried to take a further step though, the wolves would react much more aggressively than before, appearing ready to attack if she descended any lower, and she'd bring her leg back to the same step.
At an impasse, Sweetie knew she could use her magic at any point to restrain or block the wolves. She could hold them down, force them to the side, drive them off, or pretty much anything else... even kill them. But she wasn't here to attack or to fight. She had to assume they weren't either. There'd been enough of that already. She was here to apologize. So, she did the only thing she could.
She closed her eyes and began to sing.
The song was low—quiet at first, but building. It came out of the darkness, long, steady notes sweeping gently up and down in pitch. There were no words—at least none ever known to ponies—but it evoked a melancholic loneliness in all who heard it. As it grew louder, the notes of sadness and regret built slowly into a core melody, lilting and weaving through each other into higher, brighter ideals. Friendship, family, and camaraderie spun around each other, adding strength and purpose. Those grew, aiding, complementing one another, leading to a crescendo of pure, unassailable, and absolute determination. Three howls gradually joined in, speaking of love, of loss, and of hope. Sweetie's voice danced between them all, harmonizing, caressing, accepting each in fullness before moving to the next. A four-part harmony arose, waves of shared pain crashing and battering in an endless storm of fear before softer notes eventually washed onto a quiet shore. There, gentle notes rose and fell, lapping against the now sunny tones, healing wounded limbs and hearts. The opening melody then reapproached, coruscating notes a reminder of earlier sadness, but tempered now by higher peaks, hinting at a better path. Cooler moods arrived, drawing down the last residual heat from the crescendo. Fading, the melody wandered back into the darkness, melancholy voice still there, but no longer alone among the lingering howls.
Scootaloo and Apple Bloom had stood transfixed, mouths agape, eyes locked on the scene below them as Sweetie Belle had begun to sing in not-quite-words. The song was amazing in itself, like nothing they'd ever heard, but what was more amazing was the effect it had on the timberwolves below. The creatures had immediately stopped their menacing behavior, and by the time the melody had become apparent, all three wolves had sat down near the base of the stairs, leaving enough room for Sweetie to descend. And she had. That was what had really surprised the two. Sweetie had walked right off the stairs and stepped between them. As she sang, she moved from one to the next, touching them gently with her paw or a hoof. When the song finished, and the last howl faded, she was standing between all three of them. The spell appeared to be broken, and the two fillies were readying themselves to rush in if the worst happened.
Sweetie Belle opened her eyes and, smiling, looked at the three wolves around her. "Thank you," she said, tears running down her cheeks. The wolves stared down at her, their glowing eyes blinking slowly. "I'm sorry, but this is all I have." She extended her paw, the splinter from the wolf she'd killed held in the middle of it.
Sniffing, the first wolf came closer. It looked at the splinter, nosing it in her paw, before stepping back. Sweetie felt as if it was saying a sort of goodbye. The next one did the same, but whimpered slightly as it did so. The third also looked at it, but didn't step back. Instead, it pulled the splinter from her paw, setting it aside. Then, licking the tears off her cheek, it pulled the guilt from her heart as well.
Giggling at the wet surprise, Sweetie reached to pet the wolf. The wood felt curiously warm beneath her metal paw, its life, like her own, undeniably evident within what would otherwise be inanimate detritus. The wolf seemed to sense this as well, and leaned into the contact. At this, the other wolves came in closer, and she petted each in turn. Before long, all three were nuzzling and shoving each other, playfully vying for her attention.
"I don't believe it," Scootaloo said, looking over the railing from up on the stairs. "Are the timberwolves actually..."
"Yep... All waggin' their tails!" Apple Bloom said, smiling. "Actually," she said, looking closer before bursting into laughter. "I think Sweetie is too!"
Scootaloo saw it, and laughed herself. Then, small at their distance, but unmistakable still, they saw a flash on Sweetie Belle's hindquarters. Their eyes went wide at the realization. Sweetie had just found her cutie mark.
----
"I thought your song at the talent show was amazing," Scootaloo said, as the three returned to their clubhouse after the wolves had departed. "But that... There aren't words for whatever that was!" She looked toward Sweetie's flank yet again, still surprised by the newly manifested emblem. "No wonder you didn't get your mark at the talent show, if that's what you can do when you really sing!"
"That's a weird cutie mark ya got though," Apple Bloom said.
Sweetie craned her neck to look at her new cutie mark, and the other two stared as well. It was the paw print of a wolf—or perhaps her own metal limb—blue in color like her magic and blood. In front of it were three overlapping music notes, two purple, one pink, matching the colors of her mane. Above it all, two small stars.
"The notes make sense, considerin' the way ya just serenaded them wolves."
"Yeah, that was the most awesome thing I've ever heard!" Scootaloo said.
"What kinda song was that anyway, Sweetie?" Apple Bloom asked. "I ain't never heard that kinda language before."
Looking at her friend, Sweetie Belle smiled. "I don't know. I just opened up my heart and sang. It seemed like all I could do."
"Well, whatever it was, sure seemed to work. I'd never thought I'd see somepony pettin' and playin' with timberwolves like they was family pets."
"I think they accepted my apology, that's what matters."
"What was up with that?" Scootaloo asked. "I mean, timberwolves fight each other all the time."
"I'm not quite sure on the details, but I'm certain they knew the one I killed. Those might have been her cubs, or maybe just members of her pack, but they came here, seeking her."
"And you think they knew ya killed her?" Apple Bloom said.
"I'm sure of that. That's what the song was for. I was trying to let them know I had no choice, that I'd had to protect my own friends. They seemed to understand."
"I'm glad you got through to them and all," Scootaloo said. "But why would they be okay with the fact that you killed their mom or packmate or whatever?"
"I think... I think something was wrong with her. Timberwolves are vicious, sure, but not anymore than a lot of wild animals. The way that big one wouldn't give up, wouldn't stop coming after AJ, then us, even though we weren't really a threat was strange. On top of that, I don't think they're supposed to be that big either. I think it must've been sick. Maybe there's a timberwolf version of rabies that makes them big as well, or maybe it got into some poison joke. Either way, the wolves that came tonight seemed to understand that I'd had no choice. They were sad, but they were singing goodbye, not seeking revenge. I could just feel it."
With that, Apple Bloom finally understood. She finally got it. They'd had a scare a few years ago on the farm, when Winona had been bitten by a skunk which looked like it might be rabid, and Applejack had explained what the disease might do. The thought of having a loving friend lose control and attack everypony around them was unbearable. Having to kill your own friend to stop them would be even worse. Remembering how she'd felt about Winona, Apple Bloom now understood now why Sweetie Belle could feel so bad about what she'd done in killing the timberwolf. Even after it had injured Applejack, even after it attacked them all, even after it had ripped her own leg off, even then, seeing the creature at its worst, Sweetie would still always have been assuming the best.
Apple Bloom wrapped her friend in a massive and unexpected hug. "Don't ever change, Sweetie!" she said, crying. "Don't ever change!"
Sweetie Belle returned the hug, despite being unsure what had caused Apple Bloom's outburst. The earth pony let go after a moment, and stepped back.
"What was that for?" Scootaloo said, having watched from the sidelines.
"Sorry," Apple Bloom said, wiping tears from her eyes, but smiling. "It just, well, it finally made sense. I think I know what your cutie mark is for, Sweetie. Or at least part of it?"
"Yeah?" Sweetie said, curious.
"You got it for always assuming the best in everypony. Even Diamond Tiara. Even Silver Spoon. Even giant timberwolves tryin' to kill ya! You always assume the best, and because of that, ya end up makin' friends out of yer enemies."
The unicorn couldn't help but smile at the compliment. "I think that's a great way to put it."
"But what's the rest mean?" Scootaloo asked, gesturing toward the mark.
Sweetie thought for a minute before replying. "To start with, I think there's a literal aspect. I love singing of course, and the notes go with that. Likewise, I have an actual paw myself, a constant reminder of my underlying nature. Figuratively, I think it represents that idea I mentioned before. 'To thine own self be true.' For me, that means two things. The paw print in the back is blue, like my magic. That's what I am. It represents my golem nature, and the incredible power I have with that. Like the claws it shows, that power can be dangerous, even fatal. My own metal paw then, is a reminder of that feral power, as well as the fact that I used it to to kill a living creature. The notes in front though, that's the other part of me. That's who I choose to be. Like AB said, it's the part of me that tries to always assume the best in others. It's music, it's kindness, it's harmony, it's friendship. It's all the things that hold back that raw, feral power I have. The notes are in front because that's how I choose to approach the world."
"Like you were saying, how you could have hurt Diamond and Silver, but you hugged them instead?"
"Yeah.. I could've done anything to them, right? I mean, anything. Tied them up, covered them in mud, hurt them, even killed them... or worse. Much worse. My abilities are pretty powerful and with great power..."
"Comes great responsibility?" Scootaloo finished, impatient.
"No. With great power, there's a lot of temptation to use it. See, you two both got your cutie marks for using your magic in amazingly powerful ways. I think I got my mark for not using mine. I could have done anything to Diamond and Silver. I could have done anything to those three wolves. But I didn't. Instead, like AB said, I chose to make friends instead."
Scootaloo laughed. "If you look at it another way though, it's almost like you got your cutie mark for not killing Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon!"
"I wouldn't quite put it that way," Sweetie said, but laughed all the same. "Seriously though, I still expect both of you to try to be friends with them!"
"What about the stars?" Scootaloo asked. "They look a lot like the ones on my mark, and, now that I think about it, the ones over the tree on AB's as well."
The three ponies looked at their various marks, comparing with those of their friends. Each mark had two small stars in various places above the main body of the emblem. Apple Bloom made the connection first. "What if it's like Twilight's mark?" she said. "Ya know, she's got those five stars, representin' the other Elements."
"You mean the stars on each of our marks are the other two of us?"
"Yeah, why not?"
The three pondered this for a moment, and in unison shouted, "Cutie Mark Crusaders: Stellar Sisters Forever!"
Sweetie Belle, Rarity's sister and the third of the golem fillies, finally got her cutie mark. When she and the other two initially came to explain it to me, I admit I freaked out just a bit, as Scootaloo made it sound like Sweetie had received her mark simply for not murdering a pair of bullies from their school. After getting further details directly from Sweetie Belle though, I believe her talent is not nearly so morbid.
After initially discovering the latent magic in the three fillies, it seemed obvious to me that they each represented their respective tribes in an almost symbolic way. As their talents manifested, this seemed even more clear. Scootaloo found that her talent led her to be—among other things—the fastest pegasus on record. Apple Bloom, in the earth pony tradition, grew a tree larger than has been seen in hundreds of years, and appears to have a powerful connection with lifeforce itself. As such, the fear I confided to you around the campfire that night was mostly because I know how powerful unicorn magic can be, and I feared Sweetie Belle—her veins literally coursing with that magic—would certainly manifest a talent for it as well. That combined power was very frightening to even contemplate.
But a most curious and amazing thing has happened. While there is no doubt that Sweetie Belle's ability with unicorn magic is great—perhaps even greater than my own was before I got my wings—I think her true talent is not in unicorn magic, but rather, the magic of friendship itself, something I've learned in recent years to be even more powerful.
I know that may sound ridiculous, but I think it's true. She's explained to me how she got her mark for singing to three timberwolves, and in her own words, "apologizing" to them for the one she had killed. Her friends corroborate this statement, amending that she was actually playing with the three as though they were "family pets." On top of that, I've also heard from Rarity and Applejack both that Sweetie has led her friends to make friends with the bullies I mentioned earlier, even inviting them to join their club.
That said, her mark itself is certainly odd, even though it seems to back up her story. It consists of three musical notes in front of a wolf's paw print. I've attached a sketch of it for you. As you'll recall from my letter last week, the filly herself has somehow transformed her previously injured leg into a metallic canine paw as well.
Many ponies in town find her and her metallic limb an odd sight to say the least, but it's certainly not doing any harm. Sweetie herself insists it's a sort of memento of the wolf she was forced to slay, and talking with her, she seems like a perfectly well adjusted and normal filly in every other way, despite the odd appendage.
The other members of the trio likewise seem to have embraced their new abilities quite well. Scootaloo, as I mentioned, easily out-flies any pegasus around, yet when she's not racing—or talking about the physics of racing—she, too, seems just like any other filly her age. Rainbow Dash continues to give her lessons in stunt flying, and I think it's great for both of them to spend time together as sisters. Of course, Scootaloo herself has a lot to teach, and both Dash and I have been spending time learning her strange techniques for supersonic flight and wingless hovering. I find it fascinating, both on a personal level, as well as academically. Tell Luna that I hope to one day fly up to her realm myself, and see the sky as it's meant to be seen.
Applejack's sister, Apple Bloom, is doing great as well. I owe her more than I can ever say, and I still get choked up when I think about what almost happened. The thought that I could've lost one of my best friends, save for that amazing little filly... Words aren't enough, but I can think of no way to repay her. I'm sure I'm not alone in my thoughts either. All of my friends feel that we owe everything to Apple Bloom for saving Applejack when none of us could.
I hope, now that all three seem to have received their cutie marks and realized their potential, we won't be in for anymore surprises for a while. Those three are still going to be a powerful force in the world, regardless, but I think I can rest a bit easier knowing we at least have some handle on what to expect now. As much as I love seeing new magic, it was getting a bit tiring, having to recalibrate my definition of impossible on a weekly basis.
Anyway, I hope you've been able to make progress with the Caribou. I hear that Gunnar enjoyed his impromptu visit to Ponyville, so maybe that will help with negotiations. If not, you could always threaten to send the Cutie Mark Crusaders his way if he doesn't agree to your terms. Just kidding, Celestia!
Lastly, looking at these fillies and their situation, and especially Sweetie Belle, I can't help but find parallels in my own life. Here's another young unicorn, finding she has an incredible talent for magic, and doing incredible things with it. Yet, unlike me, she seems to have skipped the decade of lonely study, and leapt directly into the literal magic of friendship. I foresee only good things for her in the future because of it, though I confess, there is a small part of me that might be a bit jealous. I can only imagine where I might be now, had I started my life with good friends beside me like she has, rather than waiting until moving to Ponyville to find them. Ah, but if wishes were fishes...
I can't go back in time and change things—and you know I've tried—but in all seriousness, I really am so happy to be where I am. I know I've said this many times over the past few years, but thank you so much for insisting I come here to make friends in Ponyville. My life is infinitely better because of it. Since moving here, I have seen so much, learned so much, and enjoyed so much that I fear I'll never be able to remember it all. Even in times like these, where I feel I'm barely on the sidelines at best, so many amazing things happen here, things I count myself lucky to be even the smallest part of. These three fillies, literally three wishes come true, are just the latest part of it.
Your friend, and always faithful student, —Twilight Sparkle
----
"Hey, girls?"
"Yeah, Sweetie?" Apple Bloom said.
"I was just thinking about how we all have those same stars on our cutie marks."
"Yeah. We're Stellar Sisters!" Scootaloo chimed in.
"Right, but we said that's kind of like Twilight Sparkle's mark, how her own stars represent the other Elements of Harmony."
"Okay, so?"
"Well, I was thinking maybe we're kinda like that as well."
"In what way, Sweetie?" Apple Bloom said, not sure where this was going.
"You know how the Elements can combine their powers, and they're even more amazing when they do?"
Scootaloo connected the dots first. "Are you girls thinking what I'm thinking?"
A grin slowly spread across all three faces as they prepared for their three way hoof bump and signature rallying cry.
