Rainbow Dash helps Scootaloo with her speech impediment, but when the two accidentally ruin a book, they incur the wrath of Twilight Sparkle. Will they find a way to placate the angry alicorn, or will this be their final adventure?
(dis)Like what you read? Tell me why! ~Super
Hi Eveypony. I'm Scuttaloo, N-no, Skir...TA loo- Ughhh, I can't ven prounce mah own n-n-name. But I have annnnnn aweswome big sitter--I mean sister. Her name es Rainbow Crash...er, Dash. She hlps me with my seech condi...con...condition!
This is the sory of h-how whaaaa-we acciduntly ruined a berk, and inculd incurred the wrath of a alicon, I mean aricorn, I mean Twilight Sparkle.
Hiya! Rainbow Dash here, the one and only. Scootaloo's working on her speech right now. It's hard for her, so if ANY of you numskulls give her trouble for it, I'll knock your block into next week. Got it? Great, on to the story!
Alternate Universe, because Scootaloo has a speech impediment (Developmental verbal dyspraxia). I swear I'm not mining for feels--it makes her a more complex and interesting character and emphasizes the roll of Dash as her surrogate big sister.
Stuff used for the cover, which I totally did in MS Paint which I wish had layers. I mean, MS Word has more art capabilities in some ways. And it's a text editor. Flying vector Angry Twi Wing
"Right! No, other right!" I scream. Whoosh! A branch misses my ear by two inches. "Left now. Leeefft! LeeeeAHHHHHH!" I lean hard to avoid decapitation. Rainbow Dash is very scary when she's-- "Now lower!" --flying blind. Especially when I'm-- "Watch out for that--RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT!!!" --her pilot, with an angry unicorn on our tail. But trying not to die does seem to help me speak clearer... "Down! Now down! AUGH TOO FAR DOWN! UP!" How did we get into this mess in the first place? PFFFSSHHHT! A beam of pure energy rushes by us and explodes a nearby tree. "Bank a little right... there that's good and... AUGGHHH DOWN!" She dives to the forest floor, and I feel a few hairs ripped from my mane. Yeah, we're going to die. But before we do, let me tell you a story.
...Earlier...
With her strength and agility, Rainbow Dash easily lifted me and the book up off of the ground and onto the room-sized cloud that hovered perhaps ten Celestes in the air.
She set me down, and I sank into the fluffy goodness. It's not very often these days that I get to go cloud walking, on account of my wings, so it's always super neat when I do get to.
Rainbow fluffed up two pillows, one for her and one for me. She's the best. "So kiddo," she asked me, "what did you and Doctor Sound work on this week?"
I have to go visit a speech therapist over in Canterlot several times a week; his name is Doctor Strange Sound. It's helpful, but its pretty boring. Here with Dashie, I get to practice applying what I learn over there.
"Well, we wokked on the eeeeeee sound."
"Eeees, huh? Sounds pretty sweeeeeet! And speaking of sweet, guess what I got us?"
"What?" I asked, absentmindedly twirling a whiff of cloud around with my hoof.
"It's a book called 'The King's Speech'. It's about--"
"The King?" I interrupted. "We dawn... dawn... dawn't have king!"
"Well if you'd let me finish!" Dash stated with a silly harrumph. "It's about King Gorkle the Third, ruler of the Griffon Kingdom. He had a speech impediment like you."
My eyes lit up. "Really, he deh too?"
"Yeah, he had some serious stuttering stuff going on. But he had a friend who helped him through it so he could make an important speech to his people. Cool, huh?"
"Wow, yeah, Rainbow, th-that sownds net--I mean neat!"
I love my big sister so much. She's doing this for free you know--I mean, the whole Big Brothers Big Sisters thing. I'm suuuuuper lucky to have the most awesomest of awesome ponies in Ponyville be my Big.
"Heck yeah it's neat. You ready to read some of it?" she asked me.
I looked up at her and smiled. "Anything to impreg...impress my sister!"
...Later...
"Oh uh, heh, hey Twilight. Uh, nah, nothing happened. Just uh... Scoots here, she uh, spits! Yeah, she can spit too much when she talks, you know, DVD and all that, and uh, she just spat out like a real big loogie. Uh, won't happen again! Promise."
Twilight grimaced at the thought of my spit defiling her precious book, but she seemed to have bought it. "Uhh, okay, I understand. I'm happy to see you helping Scootaloo, just be careful, okay?"
"'Course, Twi! I wouldn't let you down!" Rainbow assured her. Twilight luckily didn't decide to fly up here to investigate, instead electing to trot back into the library.
Rainbow let out a "Phew!" and fell onto her back, back into the puffy cloud. She turned her head and grinned nervously. "Heh, that was close one, huh?" she said.
I grimaced. "We're in touble, aren't we?" I said.
Rainbow nonchalantly flicked a hoof in my direction "Nah, we'll fix it, no big deal. I'll just--"
"Wainbow," I interrupted her. "We j-j-just runed one of Twilight's bewk-ks. You kn... kn... know how she is'aboot that? R-right?"
Dash's pupils suddenly dilated, and the color drained from her face. She quickly pushed the cloud higher, out of earshot of any potential lavender-coated eavesdroppers. Then she started to hyperventilate. "OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH weruinedabookwe'resodoomed!"
She was freaking out, but this time, it was my turn to be the big sister. I put a reassuring hoof on her shoulder.
"Hey sisister, don't be down. We can go on ant adventure to get her. I mean, 'together'. To fa-fa-fa-fix it." I did my patented "Scootagrin" smile. Hopefully it would work.
It did. She gave me a hug. "You know, you're right, squirt. This does sounds like an adventure!" She grinned. "I can picture it now: 'Rainbow Dash and the Angry Alicorn'!"
"Hey!" I shouted. "What aboot meh? Are not I tart of this adventear too? And fu-further mar, while 'Ang...ry Allycone' alliiiiterates, we neh need more mistress, I mean mysterious t-ttttt-title!"
She stuck a hoof nervously behind her mane. "Heh, sorry to break it to you kid, but 'Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo and the something something' is one 'and' too many. It doesn't, you know, flow. Your title's gotta flow right, you know what I mean?"
I paused to consider this. She did have a point. I tried again. "Well, b-buts, rememer that serays they made us rid-read when--well, at leassst in Couddale they did--called... Re...Re-Rescue Wangers?" I asked.
"Oh yeah, nice thinking kid," she replied. "What was it? 'Dale 'n Chip' or something like that?"
"Yeah, yeah!" I enthused.
"Okay, how about this: 'Dash 'n Scoots and the Wrath of the Twilight Princess'?"
Understandably, Rainbow wasn't thrilled with my idea. As far as I could gather, she didn't really trust the Dracone-whatchamacallit, and I could understand why. He seems shifty, and I suspect his (seemingly sincere) relationship with Fluttershy is the only thing keeping him in check.
"Scooter, You know we we can't trust that dragon--"
"He's n-notta dru... dragon. He'sa... um..."
"Yeah, Draconequus, whatever. Listen kid, you can't trust him. You know reading more than I do. Isn't there somewhere else we can go to fix a book?"
"On a Suh... Sundy aff... aff... right now?"
"Yeah, you're right. Everything's probably closed. Also, we did kind of destroy the book."
"Kind-d of?"
"Okay, completely destroy the book. And she'll know if it's a new one. Right, to Fluttershy's place. Scoots, this better not turn out horribly."
"Oh come on, Rainbow! Th-this is an adveshure, rememmmber?"
"You're going to get us killed, you know."
"Pwobably," I joked.
RD is close enough friends with Fluttershy that they just trot into each other's houses. Or cottage, in this case. We pushed the door open and walked inside. We looked around. There were plenty of animals, but no ponies. Or Draconequine, or what ever they're called.
"Why, hello ladies, fancy seeing you here," the unmistakable suave voice rang out.
"No games, Discord. Where are you?" Dash asked, perhaps a bit aggressively.
"My, how I do enjoy looking down on you. Up here, silly filly."
We both craned our necks upward to see that, yes, Discord was on the ceiling. Literally. He looked to be painting it, holding an artist's palette in his claw and running broad impressionistic strokes upon the popcorn texture. Except, he was part of the painting too. It made me think of what Rainbow had told me about him hanging out in Celestia's stained-glass windows. It kind of made my eyes go funny, so I stopped looking up. Dash got right to business.
"Okay, here's the deal, Discord. I don't want any funny business. I know you can do good, and I'd like you to do some good right now."
"Oh, really?" asked Discord, an amused smirk on his flat face. "What ever could have the oh so high and mighty Rainbow Crash down upon her knees, begging me, me of all creatures for help?
"Actwoally, It's I whom need year--your helph," I stated calmly. Inside though, I was a bit nervous. I like Discord more than Dash does, but he did mess up my big sister in the head, and that's not cool.
"My help, hmmmm? Interesting. What for?" He slithered down off of the ceiling and onto a couch that looked suspiciously like one of Rarity's. I'd have to ask Sweetie about that.
Understandably, Rainbow Dash choose to be my spokespony. "Well, we were working on reading, but--" Discord reached over and clamped a talon over her muzzle.
"Shhh. No helping. I want to hear this one straight from the horse's mouth. Scootaloo, would you like my help?"
"Mmhhmph!" Rainbow said angrily, eventually extracting her muzzle. I ignored her struggle.
"Well, you saw, seh, s-s-s"--I remembered our practice with the long e sound from this morning, and scrunched up my face. "suheeee, D-Dash and muh were w-w-w..." I took a deep breath. "working. Working on rearding, and-d-d, well, ummm..."
"Ummm, you say? Dearest Scootaloo, I am a draconequus. I have slain the mighty Jabberwock with my vorpal sword, and I have brought down the wily Ogopogo in his dreadful lake, but even I am no match for the fearsome Ummm!"
"Discord!" Rainbow growled.
"Right, carry on Scootaloo."
I smiled. I liked Discord's humor. It was quick, clever. Dash is more of a prankster. I like both of them I guess. But I like Dash more. Just want to make sure that's clear. I continued, "N-n-neigh, I have faith in... in... in you, Discrow. You cald slay the um, Ummm if you put your sh-shed and shart into it! Bu-bu-but, I want you to-- t-t-too ta--"
Dash bailed me out. "Discord, can you fix this book?" She held up the bag with the remaining ashes.
"Why, are you trying to keep the local stray book population under control?"
"What does-- What, no, not that 'fix'. I know you have weird freaky powers. Just... Scootaloo set a book on--"
"It was an ashident!" I cut in.
"Right, Scootaloo accidentally set a book on fire, and well... can you make us a new one?"
"A book on fire? How delightfully destructive. Scootaloo, you're a pony after my own heart. How, pray tell, did you do that?"
"Long story," I mumbled, head hung low.
"So yeah," Rainbow said, "can you like, you know, use your weird magic and replace it?"
Discord shifted his sitting position and stroked his chin. "That's an awfully boring way to use magic. Is it a particularly special book?"
"Well, no," she replied.
"Then just borrow a new copy from the library. Problem solved. Bug Twilight for me while you're at."
"W-well, Mischord, ummmm, we didcht burrow it. It's Twa-Twilight's book."
"We... don't really want Twilight to know," Rainbow added.
Discord sat up now. "Oh? You want to hide it from her?"
"Yes," we replied simultaneously.
Discord raised his eyebrows. "Lying to your dear friend Twilight? Now that's not very loyal at all."
"Look, you know how Twilight gets about her books. We messed up, okay. Now, can you help Scootaloo and I out, or what?"
Discord turned his head to me, still lazing on the couch. "Now, Scootaloo, I'm ashamed of you. You know how important honesty is. I thought your adoptive big sister did too, but I guess I'm the only honest thing around these days. I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell Twilight about this. Say, do you smell that?" He sniffed the air curiously.
"Um, no," Dash replied nervously. "Look, Discord, I knew coming to you was a bad idea, and I--"
"Ah ah ah. Be a good pony and don't distract me. I'm concentrating." He continued to sniff, his nose turning several different shades of green in succession. Rainbow just glared. After a good half minute, he finally spoke:
"Aha! I smell a friendship lesson in the making." Then he poofed out of existence.
