Doorways
"Love unlocks the door to one's heart. A good song unlocks the jewelry box."---Old sparrow proverb.
Scootaloo grumbled and dragged her heels as she walked through Whitetail Woods with her friends, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. The bottoms of Scootaloo's hooves throbbed from plodding through the dirt for a solid hour, and two calf muscles felt like they were on the verge of spontaneously combusting. All told, Scootaloo would say she wasn't having a good day. The half-closed eyelids and sour frowns on Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle told Scootaloo that her friends weren't faring much better physically.
Overhead, the sun climbed ever higher, signaling the arrival of noon. Scootaloo lazily kicked up a spray of leaves and started entertaining thoughts of finding ways to leave the outing when her meanderings were interrupted by a sharp growl from around the region of her stomach.
Scootaloo turned her head and caught Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle staring at her and flashing big, toothy smiles.
"Wow, Scootaloo!" exclaimed Sweetie Belle. "That was a good one! Did you even eat breakfast? That sounded like it was loud enough to wake the dead."
Scootaloo's ears slowly filtered in the chatter of their teacher, Cheerilee and the rest of the class, and Scootaloo realized the three of them had fallen a little bit behind. However, she couldn't be bothered to place extra energy into her legs to catch up to the group.
"Breakfast schmeakfast!" Scootaloo spat. "Mornings are when I try out new tricks on my scooter and try to go farther with my wings. Eating breakfast would just take up too much time."
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes while Apple Bloom darted off to join up with Cheerilee.
"Oh get real!" said Sweetie Belle. "Your wings are always going to be puny!"
Scootaloo screwed her face into an attempt at a sneer but decided she could never accomplish anything resembling menace. She then stuck out her tongue instead and added, "Nuh uh!"
"Yuh huh!"
"Nuh UH!" Scootaloo exclaimed with a stomp of a forehoof, a rise in her voice and notes of hurt edging into her words.
Sweetie Belle pursed her lips and cast a downward glance when she realized she was treading into dangerous territory. Feeling ill at ease, she tried to change the topic but continued walking towards the rest of the group. "Boy I can't wait for this walking to end so we can get to that picnic! I wonder what Miss Cheerilee brought us out here for."
Scootaloo shrugged. "Who knows? Probably another lame..." Scootaloo picked up a small, slender purple leaf and placed it across the bridge of her snout, pretending they were glasses, tossed her head high in the air and changed the pitch of her voice to imitate her teacher. "Educational session! Now today, class, we are going to be talking about the wonders of nature!"
Sweetie Belle had her muzzle buried fiercely into her front hooves, trying her best to stifle a fit of the snorts but not having much luck, for she was giggling like a hyena. "You know Miss Cheerilee doesn't WEAR glasses," she managed to titter out after her laughter had slowed down.
Scootaloo blushed and looked around, hoping nopony saw her making a spectacle. "I did that for... emphasis! Yes that's right!" Scootaloo couldn't help but notice Sweetie Belle flashing an incredulous stare and decided to move her attention back to her hunger. "Anyway... My stomach so totally can't wait for me to chow down on these cookies I brought," Scootaloo continued.
The orange pegasus filly looked to her flank where there rested a small saddlebag, one that was about the right size for a schoolfilly, and she stuck her snout into the flap, inhaling deeply and smiling as the scent of walnuts and chocolate chips produced a broad grin and a sliver of saliva dripping from the corner of her mouth.
Sweetie Belle frowned, seemingly shocked far worse than Scootaloo was expecting. "You brought cookies?! But Miss Cheerilee expressly told us not to bring sugary things! Only granola bars! Miss Cheerilee has something special planned for our picnic, and she said sweets..."
"Aww you're worse than my dad!" Scootaloo exclaimed with another emergence of her tongue.
Scootaloo finally found the energy to bound away from Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo felt thoroughly irritated. She couldn't explain it, but lately it had seemed that she and Sweetie Belle did little but fight, often over the silliest things, such as the proper technique for increasing the launching force of a toaster, and Scootaloo only found herself getting more and more impatient with her friend. Yes, Scootaloo had to admit to herself that she had a short fuse and a daring, firebrand attitude. She couldn't help it. Maybe it was Rainbow Dash rubbing off on her, but every day brought an even fiercer desire to grab life by the throat and do more with more gumption and go farther.
Deep down, Scootaloo knew that underneath Sweetie Belle's occasionally vacant expressions lay a mind that had its sharp moments, although she would never admit that to Sweetie Belle's face. However, Scootaloo noticed that more and more of Sweetie Belle's sister rubbed off on her, and her need to correct Scootaloo, a behavior which seemed to be manifesting itself with more alarming frequency, and fascination with the prim and proper mushy lovey dovey girly stuff could only crawl deeper under Scootaloo's hide.
"Ugh. What's wrong with cookies? I mean I LIKE cookies. She probably likes cookies even more than me! Who does she think she is?" Scootaloo grumbled as she huffed and stomped her way to the group and finally caught up.
Scootaloo gave a slight pant as her wings drooped and she placed the last few shaky hoof steps, one in front of another, then promptly collapsed on the ground as she cursed the throbbing in her legs. She looked up and around, which was slightly uncomfortable given her low vantage point, but she couldn't be bothered to dig for the energy to move her legs anymore. She saw a couple of her classmates standing over her with expressions of mild concern, Snails standing behind Silver Spoon and cleaning his ears, and Diamond Tiara snickering and trying to hide a malicious smirk. Cheerilee parted the crowd of fillies and colts and waded her way through to help Scootaloo to her feet. She then turned around and headed back to the front of the class as Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom trotted up to Scootaloo's side.
"Scootaloo, stop being so dramatic," Cheerilee snapped.
The renowned trouble-making grin of Diamond Tiara's parted her lips, and she spoke with an icy tongue. "Yeah, Scootalump. SOME of us are here to learn. So stop holding the rest of us up!"
Scootaloo gritted her teeth so hard she feared she would chip a tooth, and she mumbled under her breath, struggling to keep her rising anger in check. "Why you..."
"Come on, Scootaloo!" Sweetie Belle piped up as she tried to distract the orange one. "Let's go see how many colors we can find in the leaves!"
"And that goes for you too, Diamond Tiara!" added Cheerilee, never losing her sing song tone.
Scootaloo burst into a fit of laughter that she instantly regretted when a cramp in her sides flared up. As she rolled over and grabbed her stomach, alternating between laughing and mumbling utterances of discomfort, Sweetie Belle waltzed over, grabbed Scootaloo by the tail with her mouth, and hauled the pegasus away.
"Come on, Scootaloo," Apple Bloom muttered as she walked along with Sweetie Belle.
Sweetie Belle dragged Scootaloo off to one side where a pile of leaves lay underneath a particularly scrawny looking elm tree. Scootaloo then righted herself and placed her bag on the ground. She then looked around. This particular part of Whitetail Woods had had a Running of the Leaves event the day before yesterday but would require another one to coerce the remaining leaves to part with their trees. Around Scootaloo and her friends, many parachutist maples were in free fall, tumbling end over end, whirling and pinwheeling in a vibrant waltz of shiny, waxy leaves, bedecking the air with a glimmering spectacle of crimson dancers. Many more remained in the crowns of the trees, tenaciously clinging to their branches like friends refusing to part, or newcomer dancers suddenly developing stage fright and refusing to take part in the dance. The applause of thundering hooves would soon change their tunes.
As Scootaloo turned her head and panned her view across the woods, she slowly started to admire the natural beauty of them, with their multitude of reds, yellows and purples of varying shades seemingly splashed haphazardly across the landscape in a vibrant palette. The soothing warbling of song birds, rhythmic hammering of woodpeckers, and soft melodies of woodcocks and mourning doves came to her ears. Scootaloo didn't want to admit it, but she was glad for the distraction.
Over her shoulder, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were muttering something to each other. There was little doubt in Scootaloo's mind that they were up to something. She tried her best to press them out of her thoughts, as she didn't want to get agitated any further. They seemed to have acquired another lackey, a rose-colored unicorn filly named Pearls Wine, making the snobby clique a trio, a sort of sick mock up of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Judging by Pearls Wine's overall height and girth of her legs, it would seem they had found the muscle of their group. Scootaloo didn't feel intimidated though. Then again, they hadn't had a confrontation yet, short of Diamond Tiara's occasional but typically obnoxious verbal attacks.
Cheerilee stopped underneath a couple trees and did her best to gather the attention of her class. Upon seeing the teacher calling everypony and gesturing the kids to gather around, Scootaloo exhaled a sigh and motioned with her head to Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo leaned down to pick up her bag and Apple Bloom merely took one last look around before sighing heavily and trudging back towards the main group. Scootaloo couldn't blame her friend one bit. She suspected that any minute, their teacher would be talking about educational nonsense on how to identify a maple from an elm, how many different types of which tree were in the woods, and possibly even boring details about animals that would be better suited for Fluttershy than them. They just wanted to look at the scenery and eat.
As Scootaloo was about to slip her head through the strap to slide her bag onto her back, she caught a glimpse of the world upside down, and Sweetie Belle heading off in a different direction and gazing at a point rather persistently. Scootaloo righted her head, leaving her bag on the ground, and arching an eyebrow, glanced back over her shoulder to where Sweetie Belle was cantering off. Apple Bloom traced Scootaloo's gaze and saw the same thing, that of Sweetie Belle's blank flank getting farther away from them.
"What in tarn...?" Apple Bloom began.
Scootaloo darted off, bagless, as Sweetie Belle called the two of them over.
"Guys! Check this out!" the filly unicorn said.
Apple Bloom hung her head and slowly shook it. "We are so gettin' busted." She then lifted her head and galloped off herself, shouting, "Hey wait up!"
Scootaloo and Apple Bloom caught up to Sweetie Belle and both instantly doubled over to catch their breaths.
"I am so... sick of running..." Scootaloo huffed. "I wish I had bigger wings."
"Well ya don't. Now don't ya?" Apple Bloom teased.
Scootaloo's eyes narrowed to slits as she gave Apple Bloom a venomous sidelong glare.
"Look at this! The poor thing," Sweetie Belle piped up, getting the attention of her two friends again.
The pegasus and earth pony glanced around, momentarily not seeing what Sweetie Belle was on about, but it wasn't long before they saw what she did as well. Flapping and hopping about, aimless and possibly terrified, a white swan battered itself about in a dance of sheer fright. Its feathers filled the air as many were ejected from its body and wings. Its neck had an ugly bruise and several spots where the feathers had been soiled dark by dirt, ruining its almost angelic pure white down. Twigs and leaves were threaded around some of its primaries. The reason for its manic state then suddenly made itself known to the fillies. A knot of string trapped one of the swan's feet. The other end lay tethered to a small stake shoved into the forest floor.
Scootaloo drew back one corner of her mouth in a note of disgust. "This is what you called us out here for? A stupid swan? If Miss Cheerilee hasn't found out we've wandered away from the group, she most likely WILL soon enough." Her pupils shrank as the realization hit her. "She's going to tell my folks. She's going to tell my DAD! Oh I'm going to get such a butt whoop..."
"How can you be so heartless?!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed with a stomp of her front hooves. "We have to help it. What if somepony did this to this poor thing on purpose?"
"What's this WE nonsense?" Scootaloo scoffed. "I don't know about you Apple Bloom, but I'm going to try to keep out of trouble. You have absolutely no idea what kind of spankings my dad gives." Scootaloo shuddered at the thought.
Apple Bloom shuffled her right front hoof and scraped grooves in the ground, uncertainty filling her mind. "Well it does seem rather distressed."
Sweetie Belle nodded. "Right. Plus what if we get our cutie marks for this?"
Scootaloo gazed at Sweetie Belle, who only rewarded her with a large set of doe eyes. Scootaloo huffed and dragged her right front hoof down across her face in aggravation but eventually gave up. "All right fine. So what's this operation going to be called?"
"How about Cutie Mark Crusaders Trapped Swan Untanglers?" suggested Apple Bloom.
"Right," Scootaloo iterated in a monotone.
Sweetie Belle nodded, and the three of them uttered their mantra.
"Cutie Mark Crusaders Trapped Swan Untanglers Go!"
* * *
Cheerilee smiled as she gestured to the different types of trees, going over her lecture on how to identify which leaf went with which tree, the different types of forest zones, what the mix of trees were in Whitetail Woods, and even what kind of animals could be found. She walked along slowly past several more trees, talking as she went along, and the class followed her.
"Whitetail Woods has many of the common songbirds, including the oriole and the cardinal, and other types of birds like the mourning dove and the woodcock, which is unusual in its ability to see completely around its body, and the rare mottled woodpecker," Cheerilee said as she walked, the leaves and twigs on the forest floor cracking underneath her hoofsteps.
She heard snickers from a couple colts and fillies from the mention of the woodcock and stopped to turn around and face her class, only to curiously find nothing but innocently smiling faces. As she started walking again, she heard Twist try to get her attention.
"Um exscuthe me Mith Cheerilee? But isn't that Thcootaloo's bag over there?" the awkward, bespectacled filly lisped.
"Hmm?"
The teacher turned around and followed Twist's pointing hoof to a spot on the ground some distance off. While it was difficult to see among the colorful leaves of red and orange, Scootaloo's book bag did indeed lie on the forest floor in a pile of leaves, absent its owner. Cheerilee faced the class again and did a head count. It was then that she realized her error, and her eyes widened in panic.
"Oh dear. Where are Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle?" she said, her pitch increasing several shades along with her talking speed. Harried, she glanced back over to the bag and beyond it and panned her head around this way and that, looking for some kind of sign of the missing fillies. "Okay here's what we're going to do," Cheerilee continued, turning her attention back towards the class. She then took a deep breath. "Everypony continue on to the picnic site. If we all started looking around for the three, it'll just be complete disorder. I will go to the ranger station and file a missing pony report and then come back for the class. Snails? You..." She turned to the brown, bug-loving colt, who was happily humming a nonsense tune with a vacant stare in his eyes. "Snips, then." She spotted the short stack pony hopping madly up and down from the back of the group. She shook her head and turned back to Twist. "Twist. You're in charge. Keep everypony at the picnic tables and behaving reasonably well until I get back. Is that clear?"
Twist smiled and made a salute. "Yeth ma'am!"
As Cheerilee headed off, Diamond Tiara could only scoff at Twist's assignment as leader.
"As the smartest, best looking, and most responsible one in the class, I should've been given the leader position, not HER," Diamond Tiara muttered, wrinkling her nose.
"Okay, everypony. You heard Mith Cheerilee. Leth all go to the picnic site!" exclaimed Twist to the rest of the class, her ever widening smile suggesting the pride that she felt.
The towering Pearls Wine took a menacing step towards Twist, who flinched and instantly backpedaled. "Hey I've got a better idea!"
Pearls Wine took a couple steps towards the orange bag and levitated it towards her. She then opened up the flap and gawked at the contents, a sinister smile parting her lips. Inside were several sandwich bags full of chocolate chip cookies. Judging by the size, shape, and glossy shine of them, the cookies seemed to be of the home baked variety. There was little doubt a lot of love and care went into their creation.
"Oh what's this? Scootaloo breaking the rules by bringing sweets? Tsk tsk," Pearls Wine said in a mock goody twoshoes attitude.
"Oh dear!" Diamond Tiara gasped as she placed a forehoof against her right cheek, trying to look shocked for a breach of responsibility. "What will Miss Cheerilee think? She told us that sugary things were bad for growing fillies and colts on such a long hike and that the sugar can attract bears and honey badgers." The purplish pink filly shook her head.
The sinister smile on Pearls Wine's face grew wider as she levitated a couple of the cookie bags out. "Wait wait. Let's have some fun!"
Twist and a couple of the other fillies could only watch in horror as the biggest bully in their group crumbled up a couple cookies and then carried the crumbs over to what looked like a small mound of dirt and soil. At the front of the mound was a gaping hole, and it was here that Pearls Wine dropped the cookie crumbs. She then gathered more cookies and crumbled them the same way as before, leaving a trail over to Scootaloo's bag.
"Hey, you can't...!" Twist piped up, stepping towards the bully.
Pearls jerked her head over to Twist and glared. "Who's gonna stop me? You?"
Twist fell silent.
When the deed had been done, Pearls nodded at Diamond and Silver Spoon. "Honey badger den. Hopefully it's occupied."
Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon exchanged a slow glance before the eyes of both fillies widened in shock. They scrambled around and over each other as they made a mad dash to seek out trees to hide behind. Tittering like a hyena, Pearls casually trotted away and watched from a distance behind a rock. The other fillies and colts cowered behind Twist and slowly backed away as a honey badger emerged, sniffing the air before discovering the cookies.
* * *
Scootaloo and Apple Bloom limped along back to where they had last seen the class, mumbling and complaining with each aching step. Scootaloo was especially grouchy. Most of the muscles in her body were giving her grief and almost half of her pain receptors seemed to be firing full throttle. What had originally started as merely just a bad day had turned into the worst day of her life, at least according to Scootaloo's soured mood. She was sick of running, sick of hurting, and sick of being hungry.
"Worst day of my life," Scootaloo muttered, her breathy voice barely above an audible whisper. Her thoughts then turned back to her cookies and the reasons for their baking, which caused her to think of her family. She elicited a wry chuckle. "Scratch that." Then mentally, she thought, 'The worst day of my life hasn't happened yet.'
"I didn't think that was too bad. In fact I think that went rather well."
Both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom stopped in their tracks and turned to gaze at Sweetie Belle with looks of abject horror. The white unicorn filly was the only one of the group who had emerged from the swan rescue unscathed.
Scootaloo furrowed her eyebrows. "Went well? Went WELL?!" Scootaloo's rising volume sent Sweetie Belle stumbling backwards. "That dumb swan beaked me in my right eyeball and clamped down on my left ear!" Scootaloo pointed with a hoof at her left ear, which had dried flecks of blood matting her coat there. "On top of that, we didn't even get cutie marks for our troubles!" Scootaloo turned away from Sweetie Belle and made a quick slashing motion with her left front hoof. "I don't want to have anything to do with swans or dumb animals ever again! I just want to take my mind off everything by getting to that picnic site and enjoying my cookies."
As they started walking again, Apple Bloom shook her head. "Well at least we did a good thing. Ah still can't believe you managed to calm that swan down enough ta undo the trap. An' more to the point, ah still can't believe you managed ta untangle that string with magic."
Sweetie Belle blushed and rubbed the back of her neck. "Well I'm still no good at magic, but I've been practicing. I AM pretty good at singing, though, and I couldn't believe a song actually calmed that swan down. But Fluttershy told me that you have to treat animals with kindness and that birds like songs."
Scootaloo rolled her eyes, feeling suddenly put off by an increase in what she perceived as cheesiness. "Good grief. Can we please stop talking about swans, already? I just want to get to those coo..." Scootaloo stopped walking as her voice trailed away. Her pupils shrank away to almost nothing and her knees became weak and wobbly. "My cookies," she breathed out, her voice dry and raspy.
Scootaloo glanced this way and that, frantically trying to spot her bag filled with her cookies. Instead, she spotted what looked like a commotion and the rest of the class in the distance.
Sweetie Belle approached Scootaloo and raised an eyebrow, concerned over her friend's loss of composure. "Uh, Scootaloo. You oka..."
Scootaloo took off running before Sweetie Belle could finish, completely ignoring her still cramping muscles.
"Okay? What the filly?" Sweetie Belle finished.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle exchanged glances and then chased after Scootaloo.
As Scootaloo came galloping up at the fastest she had ever run, the honey badger made haste towards its den, dropping cookie crumbs from its toothy mouth along the way. Scootaloo ground her heels in and skidded to a halt, her breath rapid and heavy. She didn't breath this way from fatigue, however. This time she was angry. She was seeing red.
As the fillies and colts saw that the badger had retreated, one by one they slowed their cowering and came out of their hiding spots. Twist was the first to spot Scootaloo.
"Hey Thcootaloo. Mith Cheerilee was actually looking..."
"Shut up, Twist," Scootaloo snapped.
Scootaloo looked at the ground and saw what was left of her cookies. They were little more than ruins, tiny bits of crumbles and baked cookie dough. Chocolate smeared blades of grass here and there, the last remaining signs of the chips that surely would've given the cookies their sweet and savory wonder. Scootaloo bent down and picked up a couple crumbs with her right front hoof and let them tumble down again. She then stomped down on a larger left over chunk of cookie, crushing it into smaller pieces, and gritted her teeth. She then looked up and gave the whole class a flashing, steely look, and all her classrooms suddenly grew more afraid than they had been with the badger. As she glanced around and her anger grew, she suddenly spotted her orange bag hung up on a lower branch of an elm tree. She gasped, and her anger faded briefly to a mix of disgust and surprise, and seeing this reaction caused Pearls to start snickering.
Scootaloo galloped up to the tree and craned her head upwards, spotting the bag dangling just out of reach. Her heart felt like it was at the bursting point for her anguished emotions, and she grew frantic, turning to Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle as they trotted up to her.
"Help me! Please!" Scootaloo cried, her voice cracking. "That bag was a gift!"
Sweetie Belle gave Apple Bloom a sorrowful, empathetic look and then gave it to Scootaloo and nodded. "Let's make a tower!"
Scootaloo cracked a half smile as a glimmer of hope entered her heart. "Good idea, Sweetie Belle."
Apple Bloom noted the persistent stares of her two friends and groaned as she leaned up against the tree trunk, forming the base of the trio's tower. Apple Bloom then grunted as Sweetie Belle hopped up on her shoulders. The earth pony weaved and wiggled and struggled to support the weight of her friend. Scootaloo took a couple steps backward, licked her lips, shifted her stance down low, dug her heels in and took a running leap to the top of the tower. Apple Bloom groaned and screwed her eyes tight as she tensed her shoulder muscles and locked her knees. The weight above her shifted and leaned this way and that, and she struggled to keep the tower of fillies propped up against the tree trunk.
"Whoa! Keep it steady down there!" Scootaloo exclaimed as she glanced down at her friends.
Apple Bloom finally found her balance and breathed a sigh of relief. "Well if only SOMEpony would lay off the junk food more often, Sweetie Belle!"
Sweetie Belle frowned. "Hey I haven't gained that much weight. YOU try living with a sister who practically lives to indulge! And don't lock up your knees. You're the base and I don't want you passing out."
"Quit being a know-it-all!"
Frustrated, Scootaloo shouted down at her two arguing friends. "Will you two hold still and keep it down?!"
Scootaloo glanced up at her bag, which still hung on the tree branch like a tangled puppet. It still seemed a little bit out of reach. She stretched her tiny wings, jumped up from Sweetie Belle's back, and fluttered with all her might. She pumped and strained until her face flushed red but never got any higher than several inches. She was nowhere near close to snagging her bag from the tree.
"Come on, Scootalump! Can't you fly?" Diamond Tiara teased, her voice icy. "Fly, Scootalump, fly! Fly, Scootalump, fly!"
Diamond Tiara's demeaning chant caused a couple other fillies and colts not particularly close to Scootaloo to join in, rewarding the broken-hearted pegasus with a veritable chorus of poisonous insults. Twist went around from pony to pony, shushing each one and gesturing towards him or her to stop the chants. She felt she had let down Cheerilee in her task of being the appointed leader and wanted to salvage as much of her responsibilities as possible. To Twist's chagrin, she wasn't having any luck. Pearls Wine didn't join in the chanting, however. She was flat on her back with her legs bicycling in the air as she laughed herself sick at the whole spectacle she had caused.
Scootaloo gave up trying to fly and covered her ears to drown out the noise of the chanting. She then looked down at Sweetie Belle, and with her frustrations growing over the loss of her cookies and book bag, and with the degrading chanting almost drowning her out, she unwittingly raised her voice and nearly frightened her unicorn friend.
"Don't just stand there! Use your magic and give me an assist!" Scootaloo exclaimed.
Sweetie Belle shrank away and looked away from Scootaloo's intense stare. "I don't know if I can."
"At least try, you useless good for nothing!" Then, realizing her error and seeing Sweetie Belle's hurt expression, she bit her lip and added, "Please help me."
Sweetie Belle sniffled, wiped her nose and looked down at Apple Bloom, whose expression had grown more intensely desperate.
"Just do it, Sweetie Belle. Ah want ta get the both of you offa me raht now!" Apple Bloom exclaimed.
Sweetie Belle glanced up at the snagged book bag that lay just out of reach beyond Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle then gritted her teeth, furrowed her brows, and concentrated. She searched deep within herself for the slightest bit of magic, the kind that she found when she had untangled the swan's foot. All she could muster, however, was a small ball of light that hovered two inches in front of her horn before promptly dissipating.
Pearls Wine was still rolling around and laughing fiercely. "This is the best thing I've seen all day!"
That tore it for Scootaloo. She leaped off Sweetie Belle's back, causing Apple Bloom to dump the poor unicorn filly on her back. Scootaloo raced towards Pearls and skidded to a halt just feet from where she continued to roll on the ground. Scootaloo's chest and shoulders heaved up and down vigorously with every single one of her heavy breaths, anger coursing through her body like a raging fire.
"You!" Scootaloo spat.
Pearls Wine's laughter slowly faded, and she got up, wiped a tear away and looked at the orange pegasus. "Yes, me," she said calmly.
"You took those cookies away from me!"
The rose-colored unicorn gave a grin so smug that it sent the skin on Scootaloo's nose crawling backwards. "Oh didn't you see? It was that honey badger that got into your cookies. But that's what you get for breaking the rules and leaving your bag unatten..."
"Don't lie to me!" Scootaloo exclaimed, her volume rising even further as she ground craters into the soil with her front hooves. "That honey badger did NOT toss my book bag into a tree! I know it was you who took my bag and fed my cookies to that THING!"
Pearls Wine took a few steps forward and stopped her nose a few inches away from Scootaloo's and glowered at her. Scootaloo, however, didn't flinch.
"So what if it was me?" Pearls Wine said.
Sweetie Belle approached the two bickering fillies and tried to step between the two. "Hey hey. There's no need to fight."
Scootaloo shot another intense stare at Sweetie Belle. "You're taking her side?"
A bead of nervous sweat formed on Sweetie Belle's forehead as she waved her right forehoof at Scootaloo dismissively. "I'm not trying to take anypony's side."
Scootaloo went back to glaring at Pearls. "Exactly."
It was Apple Bloom's turn to approach the fight, and she frowned fiercely. "Ouch, Scootaloo. That was a might harsh. What's gotten inta you lately? I mean what's the big deal with those...?"
Scootaloo wheeled to face Apple Bloom as the walls barely containing her rage came tumbling down. "My mom made those cookies for me!"
Pearls Wine laughed. "Well they couldn't have been that good, then."
Scootaloo's eyes burned with fire as she unleashed a furious yell and pounced on the obnoxious bigger unicorn. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom gasped as the two combatants disappeared into a cloud of dust and flying hooves. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon could only smile and watch. They had seen this play out the same way before. There could only be one result.
The fight was over just as quickly as it began, and Scootaloo was ejected from the dust cloud. She tumbled end over end against abrasive rocks and leaves before sliding to a stop. Pearls snorted and dusted herself off, but her eyes briefly grew wide in amazement as Scootaloo quickly stood up after just the briefest pause, giving Pearls a defiant stare.
Sweetie Belle quickly headed over to Scootaloo, lines of worry growing on the unicorn's face. "Are you hurt, Scootaloo?"
"That didn't hurt me!" Scootaloo snapped, never taking her eyes off Pearls. Scootaloo hoped, however, that the bully couldn't see the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.
"Then why are you cry...?"
"I said that didn't hurt me!"
In a spray of soil and leaves, Scootaloo took off running.
* * *
Scootaloo sat upon a fallen tree trunk, a ruined shell of what was once a sturdy maple, its crown of branches long since gone and decomposed. The heart of the main trunk had been hollowed out by the ravages of time and bugs. It was now little more than a short wooden tube lying horizontally on its open side. The lumps, knobs and cracks on the aged outer bark caused irritation to Scootaloo's backside, but she paid little attention to superficial pains. Instead, she thought about the anguish in her heart and how she couldn't stop her tears from coming down like rain. She heard her heart beat loudly in her ears, and her chest felt like a forty pound weight was pressing from the inside. She had her eyes closed and buried firmly into her front hooves, her tears staining the coat around her muzzle and around the pasterns of her forehooves. She shook her head back and forth as sorrow wracked her body, her anguished sobs piercing the relatively calm autumn air of the woods, drowning out the songs of the birds.
They didn't know. How could they know? Nopony knew that the treats meant more to Scootaloo than just something sweet to munch on, that her mother had made them just for her with so much love, care and affection, that they could possibly be the last simple gift of love that her mother would ever do for her. Now they were gone, ruined, reduced to mere crumbs in an act of sheer cruelty.
Scootaloo heard a rustling of leaves behind her, and in a state of panic, she bolted off of the tree trunk and whirled around, wiping her eyes to clear her vision. Through the blur of her tears, she saw that it was only Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, which put her mind at ease somewhat, but she had hoped nopony would've seen her sobbing. Still, it wasn't Diamond or Silver Spoon or Pearls. She would never reward them with tears.
Scootaloo's crying slowed, and as her eyes dried, she sat back down on the tree trunk and kicked at some dirt as she lowered her head in shame. "I'm sorry guys. I'm sorry for everything."
Sweetie Belle silently trotted over to Scootaloo's right side, stopping just mere feet from her. A fiercely intense look burned in the white unicorn's green eyes, and it terrified Scootaloo. Thinking she was going to get slapped, Scootaloo flinched when she saw Sweetie Belle lift up a hoof, which she found ironic when she didn't even bat an eye when Pearls had gotten in her face. Instead of the assault to her face that Scootaloo was expecting, however, she felt the gentle caress of a hug as one hoof then the other slipped around her shoulders. As Scootaloo's mind froze from mild surprise, she felt several drops of water hit her on the back, and she realized Sweetie Belle was crying as well.
"What's going on with you?" Sweetie Belle asked, still never relinquishing her hug.
Scootaloo didn't reach up to return the hug. She honestly didn't know what to do as her mind was too jumbled by anxiety and nerves. "It's... It's family stuff. You wouldn't understand."
Sweetie Belle extended her hooves to allow herself to gaze at Scootaloo eye to eye. "I understand family stuff. And I also understand when a friend is in pain."
Scootaloo bit her lips, and looked away, remaining silent.
Sweetie Belle's eyes darted back and forth as she tried to gauge her friend's face for a hint of release from her inner defenses but found no sign. After several moments of silence, Sweetie nodded a reluctant acceptance. "Very well. I have something for you."
Scootaloo glanced back at her unicorn friend, who turned to nod towards Apple Bloom. Apple Bloom trotted up and produced a sandwich bag. Scootaloo squinted and stared inside the clear plastic. She couldn't believe her eyes, but inside was a single cookie. More importantly, the cookie was whole, unbroken and uncorrupted. Her heart filled with joy as she looked first to Apple Bloom and then to Sweetie Belle.
"Is that one of my mother's cookies?" Scootaloo asked.
Seeing Scootaloo happy again brought a smile to Sweetie Belle's face, and she nodded. "The last one. I found it on the ground. The badger must've missed it."
Scootaloo smiled as a tear came to her eye, and she took the sandwich bag, inhaling deeply of the aroma of chocolate chips. However, just as soon as she had it in her hooves, it was gone just as fast. She did a double take and gazed at the empty spot of air just above her upturned hooves. She then glanced around here and there and on the ground, hoping to find her goodies. She saw nothing, and blinking in confusion, turned to Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.
"What just happened?" Scootaloo exclaimed.
Apple Bloom shook her head. "Ah don't know what happened ta your cookie, but there goes the fastest movin' chicken ah had ever seen."
Scootaloo turned her eyes to where Apple Bloom was pointing and saw some kind of red hen hauling feathers with the sandwich bag in its beak.
"That hen is dead," Scootaloo exclaimed.
* * *
Over at the picnic site, Twist was running around in a panic. A few minutes ago, she had led the rest of the class over to the picnic tables like Cheerilee had instructed and was currently waiting for their teacher to arrive. However, not only had Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle disappeared without permission yet again, but Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had taken their leave to chase after them, presumably to gloat, with Pearls Wine threatening to pound Twist if she snitched or tried to stop them. On top of everything, it seemed to be getting rather dark and very early.
Twist then saw Cheerilee approach from the distance, and she bounded over to the purple teacher, grateful for an adult presence. When Twist spoke, she spat out her words at such a rapid, panicked pace that Cheerilee seemed to have trouble keeping up. "Mith Cheerilee! Mith Cheerilee! Thcootaloo and Apple Bloom and Thweetie Belle actually came back but then they left again when..." Twist heard a cough behind her and looked over her shoulder, spotting Pearls giving her a rather grim look.
Cheerilee looked down at the red-haired filly and gestured for her to stop jumping around. "Whoa whoa, Twist. Let me address the class first." Cheerilee walked over to where most the children stood and did a mental tally. "Now where's Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon?"
Twist pursed her lips and remained silent.
Cheerilee glanced at Pearls Wine, who was whistling a tune like she was innocent of any charges that might be leveled against her. "Pearls?"
"Outhouse," Pearls replied succinctly.
Cheerilee shook her head. "I hope they hurry up. I just talked to the ranger, and he'll go out to look for Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. They couldn't have gone far, but he said that a fast moving rain storm was approaching from The Everfree Forest." She gaze up at the darkening sky. "Looks like it's almost here." She returned her attention back to the class. "I'll go find Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon in the outhouse and escort all of you back to your homes. It looks like the picnic will have to wait until tomorrow. Then I'll come back here and help the ranger find them."
Pearls swallowed hard when she realized that her coverup plan was falling apart. As she watched Cheerilee turn and head towards the picnic site's outhouse, she reached out with a forehoof in a state of panic. "No wait!"
* * *
Serenade preened her feathers as she waited in a hollow bank of earth underneath a maple. She had just gotten the last of the twigs and dirt out of her primaries but was sore over her failed efforts to do anything about the dark bruise on her neck or the soiled feathers on her chest. Otherwise satisfied with her cleaning, she sat down in the meatloaf position and waited. A sigh escaped her throat when a low, barely audible growl of thunder rolled over the sky above. As the remnants of the approaching storm's first call died away, a ball of red feathers burst through the opening of the hollow, the cornfed face it belonged to looking rather distressed and harried.
"Berlioz," the swan said with a nod of her head.
The crimson hen called Berlioz dropped the sandwich bag with the cookie on the ground, waved, and gave a suppressed chuckle. "He-hey there, Serenade."
"You're late. What do you have there?"
Berlioz rubbed the back of her short neck. "I know. This is food. At least I think it's food. It smells like food. But I'm not going to eat this for myself. This is for Ne Ne."
"Your family?"
The hen gave a single perky nod of her head, the comb on top bouncing in unison. "Yupserini!" The hen then gave a quick glance over her shoulder back towards the entrance of the hollow.
Serenade stood up and stretched her wings. "Are you ready to do this thing?"
"Actually can we do this some other time? I uh... I uh... What are we even doing here in this pony world anyway?"
With the swan fully upright, she towered over the hen such that the top of the hen's comb only came up to the her chest. Serenade gave a stern frown. "We don't know when the next gate will be available. It could be next week. It could be next month. To force an early closure is... difficult. We're here because the Peacock Prince disappeared about five years ago. Remember?"
"Yeah I remember." The puffy red hen kept her eyes trained on the entrance. "How do we even know he's in this world?"
"We don't. I'm just... I'm just following a hunch, alright? And WHAT are you looking at?"
A sharp, angry voice rocketed through the air from outside. "Where IS that stupid chicken?"
"I seem to have upset one of the locals," Berlioz exclaimed as she backed away from the opening and pressed herself up against Serenade's chest.
Serenade shook her head. "You stole that... whatever it is from somefeather. Didn't you?"
A hard swallow was the only response.
"Once a thief, always a thief."
"You wound me, Serenade. Can you DO something about this now?"
Serenade glanced at her right leg. A single, silvery thread of magical ether floated ghostlike from her ankle, with the other end undulating up and down as it hovered in midair. Actually it didn't so much as hover as it seemed to "pinch" the air around the other end, like it was partially folding space around the tip. The ether thread glowed with a faint, fuzzy blue haze. Serenade then looked at Berlioz's right leg. It bore the same ether thread with the same color.
"But the thread is still blue. We should at least make the most of our visit, in case the Peacock Prince IS here."
Berlioz turned around to face Serenade with sorrowful eyes and started groveling, her wings pressed together in a pleading manner. "Please! That pony wants to kill me! I'm too young to die! I want to live long enough to at least have a couple children!"
Serenade brushed her chicken friend off of her chest and rolled her eyes. "Very well. But the spell to return requires a high level of concentra..."
"Yeah yeah. Just hurry up about it."
With a flick of her head, Serenade inhaled and crooned.
A, G sharp, B. A, G sharp, C. F...
* * *
The first drops of rain greeted the leafy ground at a slow beat when Scootaloo heard the strange singing coming from somewhere. She stopped in front of a large maple, its crown of velvet leaves reminiscent to her of sunrises and pancakes, which the buttery smooth syrup that ponies would tap from the tree would surely cover with its rich sweetness. Equally as sweet was the strange but somehow melancholy song that she heard. The other two Cutie Mark Crusaders trotted up next to her, equally as entranced, Sweetie Belle especially.
"How pretty," the unicorn filly said. "Sounds like it's coming from the tree."
Sweetie Belle took a step towards the maple, but before she could look inside the hollow, the three of them heard a couple familiar voices behind, nasally voices that were like nails on chalkboard.
"Well look who's here, Silver Spoon," one voice went.
"Well if isn't Scootalump, the flightless wonder," went the other.
Scootaloo turned around and saw Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon and immediately curled her lips. "Not now, you guys. I'm doing something important."
As Scootaloo turned back towards the tree, the rain picked up pace, and a sudden crack of thunder frightened all five fillies.
"Uh, how about we find some shelter before we all get struck by lightnin'?" Apple Bloom mused.
"For once, I agree with you," Diamond Tiara stated with a point of her right front hoof.
Sweetie Belle was the first to enter the hollow, and she smiled when she recognized Serenade as the swan that she had rescued. The smile didn't put Berlioz at ease, though, who was running around and squawking like a broken klaxon. The incessant noise of the hen followed by the sudden crowding of the hollow as five fillies suddenly appeared made it difficult for Serenade to maintain her concentration. The swan screwed her eyes shut and curled the fleshy corners of her mouth around her beak in a vain attempt to maintain her connection only to find herself rapidly slipping. A white ball of light grew before her as her spell neared completion, blinding the five fillies and possibly saving Berlioz from getting pounded by Scootaloo. The little red hen clutched the cookie tightly to her chest and cowered behind one of Serenade's wings. Just when the two of them thought they were in the clear, a sudden strike of lightning just outside the hollow's entrance startled Serenade enough to kill her concentration immediately. Berlioz's eyes widened in terror as the ball of magic absorbed the lightning's electricity, tossing around crackling waves of miniature arcs of power.
"Your spell!" the chicken exclaimed.
"Oh Set'Qua!" Serenade cursed.
The last thing Scootaloo remembered before passing out was a feeling of warmth enveloping her as the light from the magic overtook her.
An Unusual Companion
"China is for those prissy peacocks or those know-it-all swans! I demand a metal cup!"--Dripseed the Drunken.
Scootaloo felt the top of her stomach lurch up to the center of her chest, seemingly crowding out her heart. A deafening roar, like that of a rushing sound, filled her ears, pressing her eardrums in uncomfortably. Instinctively, her eustachian tube popped. She knew the sensation of the stomach lurching rather well. It had come to her in many a dream about flying. It was the sensation of negative g forces. The deafening roar, however, concerned her.
Her consciousness came back to her, and her eyes slowly opened. What she saw made her heart skip a beat or two. Before her burned a bright fireball. It loomed in her vision, filling her eyesight such that she had to turn her head to see its edges. Red tongues flicked out periodically from the surface and reaching fingers of flame waved and danced before submerging back underneath the searing plasma. Occasionally, archways of fire would well up before breaking apart under their own tortuous escape. It took several seconds before the full horror of Scootaloo's situation hit her. Around her was nothing but air, and she was in free fall, heading towards what looked like the sun.
She made contact with the corona and quickly plunged through the chromosphere. Instinctively she held her breath and screwed her eyes shut, preparing her body to expect instant evaporation. Instead, she didn't burn. The most she felt was the kind of heat one enjoyed from a warm bath. After a pause of several seconds, she braved a brief peek through a sliver of an opening of one of her eyelids, and she realized, much to her relief, that she hadn't been vaporized.
Around her, the air had been colored deep red. In fact, red was all she saw. The scenery and ground below her had been replaced by the vibrant color, which danced in shimmery air as convection currents flowed past her. Red swirls, like growing roses or spinning pinwheels, churned about in the background, saturating the translucent part of Scootaloo's vision.
In the middle of this odd, crimson landscape of fire and plasma, Scootaloo found a bird, possibly the largest bird she had ever seen. It looked much like a large peacock, except its giant fan tail didn't possess eyelets, and the tail's feathers were of a single broad shape, not punctuated by the rhombuses that peacock tails were known for. Its plumage possessed various shades of bright orange, making it seem like it was almost a part of the fiery atmosphere. In fact, Scootaloo probably would've missed it if it hadn't been enveloped in a faint green, shimmering shell of light. It had its head bowed and tucked into its chest, its eyes firmly closed. Its feet were curled up, and its wings were gathered around itself.
The great orange bird of flames seemed to be sleeping in the fetal position, cradled by its womb of light, but that didn't stop Scootaloo from starting to lock up every single one of her major muscles out of sheer fright as her descent brought her past one of its large eyes. She figured the bird must've had a wing span of several hundred feet. She looked away as she was whisked past its face and started hoping that it would stay asleep.
As she headed towards the other side of the green shell surrounding the giant bird, a strange point of light appeared before her and hovered there, seemingly falling along with her. Her fear suddenly melted as she found herself captivated by this light, which seemed like a tiny star that had come to greet her. The light approached her chest, and upon making contact, blossomed into a full flower as streams of soft green light traced arcs around and through her body, with all the streams flowing towards the original star at the flower's center. When the light show was over, the star disappeared, and she found herself with her own shell of light surrounding her.
Her descent shot her out of the other end of the sun, and she seemed to be picking up speed as she fell towards the land below her. A faint purple light could be seen as shimmers in the air between her and the rolling hills below her. The light waved and traced moving patterns of no particular size or shape, much like patterns light produced when floating face down in a swimming pool. She was still high above the land, possibly miles above the land, but her free fall gave her little time to reacquaint herself with the scenery, as her vision was obstructed yet again. The forward edge of her shell started glowing white hot, and a bow shock of superheated air enveloped her, transforming her shell into a cone of flames, a veritable shooting star. Scootaloo had heard Miss Cheerilee talk about the reasons for how meteorites produced shooting stars when entering the atmosphere of Equestria. She must've gone into a daze during the lesson on surviving a fall from thirteen miles high.
As the mass of white air before her grew brighter and more intense, Scootaloo heard a hissing noise from behind her. Turning her head, she glanced behind her. All she saw was the darkness of outerspace behind the sun that she had miraculously fallen straight through. One patch of darkness seemed to deepen, almost as if it were possible for pitch black to get darker. At first she thought it curious that a patch of outerspace would get larger and deeper. Then her curiosity faded to terror when she realized that the darkness was actually getting closer to her.
As she watched, she saw a dark, reaching mass peel itself away from the background of space, and it was headed towards her. It seemed like a twisting, writhing dark arm. Then the arm changed shape and seemed like a tendril. Then the tendril split apart and became many tendrils. Before too long she saw an army of shadow snakes, all twisting and reaching and grabbing towards her. The shadows inched closer as she fell through the atmosphere. One of them touched her shell of light, then another, and a third. They snaked around and embraced the sphere of light surrounding her, searching for a way through.
Scootaloo's eyes became wide, and her mouth became slack as terror coursed through her body. "No! Stop!" she tried to scream through the roar of the flames around her.
The light in one patch of the protective shell seemed to fade, and a tiny sliver of the shadows found its way through. Tears streamed upwards from Scootaloo's eyes when she realized that, in free fall, she had nowhere to go. All she could do was watch in horror and let the shadows find their way to her. The tiny shadow snake breached the crack in the shell even farther and undulated towards one of her back legs. She watched it make contact with her leg, and she opened up her mouth to belt out a scream of horror but found herself drowned out by the roar of the flames around her. Then, her energy expended from screaming, she passed out. The last thing she heard before fading into unconsciousness was the sound of shattering, like that of glass being broken from a thrown baseball.
* * *
Even after feeling returned to Scootaloo's body, it took a moment for her brain to register to her that she was actually alive. She fluttered her eyelids open but saw only blurriness. The first thing her vision filtered in was the color blue, and she realized she was flat on her back and looking at the sky. The fuzz in her head slowly faded, and her eyes caught sight of a face looking down at her. As she tried to get her bearings, a feeling of relief washed over her, relief over being alive and breathing. She shifted her weight, trying to get a feel for where she was and heard something crack and grind, leaving her to wonder if she had made it out of her strange ordeal whole. Fearing she had broken something, she lay perfectly still and merely stared up at the sky. Her vision cleared completely and she saw the face again. It stared at her with big, red eyes set behind the most peculiar nose she had ever seen. The nose was long and slender and terminated in the most preposterously bulbous tip she had ever seen. Punctuating the tip was a strange keratinous protrusion that jutted down like an overbite. It took a while for Scootaloo to realize that she was staring at some kind of beak, on top of which lay an unglamorously short but lumpy dome of a head. The creature opened its mouth and out came words.
"Excuse me. But I do believe you've broken my finest porcelain tea set," the creature went.
Scootaloo rubbed her head. "Huh?" She suddenly remembered the fall and the strange shadows touching her and jerked upright, looking around in a panic. She saw no sign of the shadows but didn't recognize any of the trees. Worst of all, she couldn't find any of her friends or her teacher. Fearing she was lost and thinking back to her strange ordeal, she started to breathe rapidly and heavily. "Where am I? How did I get here? I wanna go home! I wanna go home!"
As Scootaloo glanced around and wheeled about, she stepped off the spot where she had landed and heard something hard clatter about. The creature winced as her awkward steps caused more pieces to break.
"I say. Watch where you're stepping."
Scootaloo stopped glancing about in fright and stilled her legs long enough to stare only at the creature for a time. "Where am I? How did I get here? Where's home? Where's Ponyville?" she asked it, gazing at it with sorrow in her eyes.
"Good Nadia. Look at this mess," the creature quipped gazing down at the ground underneath Scootaloo's feet, apparently showing more concern over the broken bits than Scootaloo's emotional distress.
Scootaloo stepped backwards as the creature approached and looked down. She finally saw where she had landed. Under her hooves, she spotted the remains of a china tea pot and some porcelain cups and a sizeable blue and white checkered blanket, which was spread out on the grass beneath. It seemed the creature was having a picnic for one. Scootaloo stepped off the broken china and sniffled. The creature glared at her, one eye narrowed and slightly twitching in a look of consternation.
"Just how are you going to pay for that? I was just about to make myself a proper Manechester breakfast, and you had to go and ruin it," the stranger exclaimed as he made a couple steps towards her.
The tears flowed freely from Scootaloo's eyes now, with her having been rendered a complete emotional mess from the approach of the stranger and his sudden anger. She was at a loss over where she was, why the strange creature before her was yelling at her, and what it was that she had done wrong. "Pay? I'm just a filly!" Scootaloo exclaimed through her sniffles. "I don't even know how I got here! Where am I? Who are you?"
As Scootaloo looked at the stranger through her tear-filled eyes, she processed in her mind what kind of creature was before her, whereas before she could only see the face. Only two legs, which were short but gangly, were below the creature, and they seemed to be leathery instead of covered in fur. The body was short, stocky, and rotund, with the chest coming up to the level of Scootaloo's nose. The most unusual feature, however, of the creature was that it sported a pair of stubby, seemingly unusable wings. It appeared to Scootaloo that she was looking at some kind of bird, but not a bird that she had ever seen before or even remembered learning about.
The stranger dragged a wingtip across the bridge of his snout, his beak being too long for his too short appendages. "Gah! Of all the inconceivable... Well I guess a proper introduction wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience." The strange bird pointed to his chest. "I'm a dodo. Actually, I'm THE dodo, the last of my kind. So if you prefer, you may simply call me Dodo. However, I have thought of a name that I would rather hear. It just came to me recently, and if I had my way, I would rather you call me Dodoringo Lamelle Esquire."
"Uh..." Scootaloo stammered, blinking the tears dry. "How about I just call you Ringo?"
There was a short pause as the dodo seemed at a loss for words. "Gnngh. Very well. Ringo it is. Now how, pray tell, shall I go about getting my tea set replaced? My breakfast was going to be oh so delicious, and I was about to prepare a rather bold tea." He tapped a feather against the side of his cheek as he pondered. "I don't suppose indentured servitude is out of the question."
Scootaloo took a couple awkward steps backwards. "I... I don't even know what that is." The dodo was starting to make her rather nervous. "I just want to find my way home. I don't even know where HERE is. I want to find my friends. I want to find a stupid chicken who stole my cookie!" Scootaloo gave a stomp in anger at her last sentence.
Ringo dropped his wing as his demeanor changed to one of amusement. He cocked his head to the side as he pondered Scootaloo's presence for a bit, and a smile escaped his face. "Is that little devil still around?" His smile faded when he noticed Scootaloo's querying stare. "Nevermind," he said with a shake of his head. "And where are my manners? You received the luxury of my name. Will you grace me with yours?"
"Uh..." Scootaloo balked at his peculiar way of talking. His mannerisms seemed rather familiar to her, but she couldn't endear herself to its unwieldy romanticisms. "My name's Scootaloo. I'm from Ponyville, and I'm..."
"Yes yes. I know what you are. You're a pegasus filly." Ringo clapped his stubby wings together. "Perfect!"
Scootaloo only grew more confused.
Ringo edged closer and placed his wings on both of Scootaloo's tiny shoulders. His smile was uncompromisingly broad. "I can help you, but you'll need to do something for me."
Scootaloo raised an eyebrow and shuffled a foreleg. "H-help you how? You're not mad about the tea set anymore?"
"Huh? Oh you're still paying for the tea set. That's part of what you're doing for me, but what I have in mind is much bigger than that." The strange creature glanced around before turning back towards Scootaloo, his smile suddenly gone, with a serious expression once again in its place. "Follow me, and I'll tell you on the way."
With a flourish, Ringo reached behind a large tree stump and produced a strange green carpet bag, with a brass clasp ringing the top. The metal frame came together in a hinge about a third of the way down from the bag, and the rest fanned out into a substantial triangle, giving the impression of sturdiness while providing a balance between portability and carrying space. Ringo undid the clasp and opened the top wide, cradling the bag under his right wing, which somehow proved amusing to Scootaloo, given the wings' short length.
"Yenu Interin!" the strange bird said.
In a flash, an envelope of light wrapped around the blanket and the remains of the tea set. Scootaloo could only stare in wonder as the blanket folded itself up with the porcelain shards still inside and promptly started shrinking in size. Her jaw dropped slightly when the folded blanket became the size of a postcard and entered the open carpet bag. In a precipitous puff of dust, Ringo snapped the bag shut.
"Whoa," Scootaloo exclaimed. "If you could do magic, how come you can't just use magic to fix the tea set?"
"Don't get any ideas," Ringo sniffed. "Reduction magic only decreases the amount of space between the molecules. Levitation is a relatively simple process. However, my good child, it would not be fitting to be in possession of a tea set that looked whole but possessed the structural integrity of a broken one. Once something is broken, it's broken. To my knowledge, I don't know of any way to keep the pieces held together." He then hefted the bag onto Scootaloo's back.
"Oof. Hey!" Scootaloo shouted, eyeballing first the bag on her back and then Ringo. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, but I am not a pack mule!"
"You're earning your keep. Now come on." Then, in a single move that a stage magician would be proud of, Ringo reached over to a tiny sapling, upon which rested a cloak, and whirled it around his body until it draped completely around him. He drew the hood over his head, completely covering his face in darkness, including the end of his bulbous beak. Finally, he tied the drawstring tight across his wishbone.
The cloak possessed a prodigious length, coming down to near his knees, and a near cavernous hood. The outer color was an unassuming moss green, and the material looked to be almost waterproof. Scootaloo half-expected the cloak to be made of some kind of expensive material, given her companion's rather unusual, middle-of-the-nose accent and elaborate speech mannerisms. Instead, it seemed to be made of something like cashmere. What little she could see of the inner lining, however, through the darkness of the hood and the gap behind the drawstring, seemed to be made of a soft purple velvet material. Scootaloo couldn't even begin to guess why Ringo felt the need to disguise his body within the shadows of a cloak.
Ringo gave a brief glance around himself, but to Scootaloo it only looked like the opening of the hood swaying this way and that. When it seemed that the strange bird appeared satisfied, he motioned to Scootaloo and began walking through the woods. Scootaloo started following.
As Scootaloo walked, she silently glanced around, taking in her surroundings. The woods around her seemed little different from Whitetail Woods where she started her class outing, begrudgingly following Miss Cheerilee with the hope that she could enjoy a good picnic and play games with her friends like hop scotch or frisbee throwing. The woods here possessed the same mix of trees such as elm and maple, all decked in the same bright autumn colors she remembered before being swallowed up by a strange light and finding herself falling through the atmosphere and waking up being gawked at by a strange bird. In the back of her mind, she almost kind of wondered if she was still in Whitetail Woods, but the absence of her classmates and teacher, and indeed her harrowing trip through the sun, planted seeds of doubt that she was even still in Equestria. There was also something else.
Her gaze wandered upward. The sun blazed a bright orange, the same as Equestria's sun. The clouds were puffy and white, the same as Equestria's clouds. The sky was a light and uplifting shade of blue. As she stared, however, she spotted here and there amongst the backdrop of blue, brief flashes and shimmers of that same purple light she saw while in free fall. Nearly transparent and seeming much like the curtains of the heavens or an ethereal bed sheet of an angel, it was rather difficult to spot against the otherwise unblemished tapestry of the sapphire sky. The simple fact that the flashes of the purple light seemed to, more or less and for lack of a better word, rotate across the sky and in the shape of a dome gave Scootaloo the inkling that something was there. The tops of some of the taller clouds also melted into a soothing backlight of purple.
Scootaloo opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by Ringo.
"That's the outer swell," Ringo muttered succinctly, never stopping his walk nor turning his head.
Scootaloo lowered her gaze and returned it to the dodo, who walked several feet ahead of her, his head still shrouded by the hood. "The outer swell?" Scootaloo asked.
"A barrier of light. It protects us from..."
A shrill scream seemed to be carried on the light breeze, lifted from some far off distance through the trees and past the rocks and reaching Scootaloo's ears to chill her blood and send fright through her nerves. Instantly Ringo turned around, the trailing edges of his cloak fluttering open as he whirled, and he set his legs into a sprint, a remarkable feat for an animal so stubby, and with his wings, grabbed Scootaloo, startling her as he dragged her behind some rather prominent boulders. Ringo, using a forceful gesture, urged Scootaloo to stay behind the boulders and inconspicuous, but upon seeing Ringo peer around the edge of their hiding spot, she couldn't repress the urge to satisfy her curiosity and look herself.
Her eyes widened when she spotted a simple wanderer, a middle-aged goose, burst through the bushes in a state of absolute panic. The goose's terrified running was still some distance off and didn't take her any closer to where Scootaloo and Ringo hid, so Scootaloo mused that the goose remained unaware of where they were. Scootaloo got the notion to call out to the goose, but the filly's voice died in her throat when a mass of shadows, much like the tendrils she remembered attacking her, emerge from the treeline in the direction of a clearing and seemed to gallop over the leaf strewn ground, rolling effortlessly over rocks and earth banks and dividing to flow around trees only to merge back together on the other side. Watching the shadows was very much like watching a stream flow over a bed of pebbles, rippling and coursing into rope-like shapes along the way. However, a stream of water usually brought refreshment and pleasant reminisces. Watching the mass of shadows raging through the woods brought a chill of fear to Scootaloo, and she couldn't help but clench her jaws tight for fear of crying out. Other parts of her body locked up as well, not the least of which were her wings.
Despite seeming to be little more than darkness and moving air, the movements of the shadows suggested to Scootaloo a possession of sentience, of an awareness or intelligence that guided the darkness towards ways most unnatural. A flurry of feathers caught the wind caused by the goose's frightful escape and ripped themselves from her body and tail. She struggled to maintain her distance as she ran, her short legs and webbed feet near useless for sprints. She pumped her wings like mad, seemingly trying to take flight, but by a visible lump in a right wing, Scootaloo knew a bone there was broken.
The goose tripped over an unseen obstacle, and Scootaloo had to stifle a gasp as the bird noisily skidded along rocks on the front of her chest, her beak bouncing along rough spots in the ground and carving a groove in the soil once she had slowed to a halt. Reflexively, the goose whirled around onto her back and held up her good wing across her face, not realizing it did nothing to shield her from the impending attack.
"No!" came the single shrill cry from the goose, a cry that wasn't even allowed to fade, cut short where it lay uttered as the shadows pounced.
Scootaloo felt the need to avert her gaze, but her eyes remained locked in place, tears streaming down her cheeks as she witnessed the horrible sight. The shadows wreathed the poor goose, much like flames would wreathe a log in a roaring hearth. No more sound came from the creature, but deep within the pitch black of the shadows, Scootaloo could see a shape that was colored a lighter gray, with a mouth open like it was emitting a scream of agony. The edges of the shape frayed and blurred, much like tissue paper being ripped apart, before completely disintegrating as the shadow gave one final triumphant whirl and then took to the skies, scattering apart to the far corners of the land. A tiny patch of scorched earth was the only sign anything, living or otherwise, had ever been there.
Scootaloo and Ringo remained behind the boulder for a time even after the ordeal was over, a sense of cautiousness compelling them to ensure that it was well and truly safe. After some silence had passed, Scootaloo finally collapsed, the weight of keeping her limbs locked in fear finally catching up to her.
"Wha...?" Scootaloo tried to choke out in a raspy voice, but her throat failed her as she felt like she had been gargling sand. After a couple swallows, Scootaloo found her voice and tried again. "What in the hay was that?"
Ringo stepped out from behind the boulder and folded his hood back as he stared first at the scorch mark and then at the sky. His red eyes shimmered with wetness as he swallowed a lump.
"Ringo!" Scootaloo exclaimed after the silence became unbearable. "Quit leaving me in the dark! What's going on here?"
The dodo let two solitary tears drift away before turning towards Scootaloo. "That was a force called 'Dark Wind'. But it... it was supposed..." He turned back towards the scorch mark and suffered another choke. "I don't understand," he said, his voice trailing away.
"What happened to the goose?" Scootaloo asked as she stepped forward, her own sorrow almost threatening to overwhelm her.
"Gone, I imagine. She's one of the lucky ones."
"The lucky ones?!" Scootaloo exclaimed. "That goose just got vaporized into thin air! What happens to the ones who aren't so lucky?!"
Ringo knelt down and touched the dark ash on the ground once before shaking his head in sadness and standing up to draw his hood forward. "You don't want to know," came his only reply.
The dodo started walking forwards again, which left Scootaloo perturbed again as she liked neither the walking nor the somber silence, and she felt like she was being strung along on something of which she understood little. Left with little options, however, she gave up trying to make sense of everything and started following Ringo again.
Their travels took them past many trees, mostly elms and maples. Scootaloo recalled a lesson from Cheerilee in which she said that the age of the tree was determined by its size and thickness of bark, and as she looked around, she noticed all of the trees were, while tall, rather thin and with an absence of the gnarled and twisting branches on the bigger trees. She felt it unusual that there wasn't a single aged tree to be found anywhere, unlike Whitetail Woods, which had many trees of a wide variety of types and across a full spectrum of sizes.
Scootaloo couldn't be bothered to wonder about the ecology of her surroundings for too long. She was too preoccupied with thoughts about her strange situation. Then, the more they walked, the more her thoughts melted into melancholy boredom. To entertain herself, she surveilled her surroundings once more. Nothing about the landscape looked familiar to her. Behind her, partially shrouded by a gathering of mist, rose a smattering of small mountains, dressed royally in purples and the golds of the trees near the more gradual slopes and crowned by a hat of clouds. The landscape around her seemed to gradually descend away from the mountains, so gradually that the land almost seemed level. It was far from flat, however. The two of them walked past rises and dips in the contours of the land and outcroppings that harbored animal dens. The picturesque beauty brought a slight smile to Scootaloo's face, but it wasn't enough to kill her increasing weariness.
After about an hour of walking, or it could've been several for all Scootaloo knew, her gait became like molasses, and she finally gave up and collapsed on the ground. Ringo gave her a brief glance and then drew back his hood, eyeballing an ugly tree stump.
"I could've sworn we had passed by this stump before," Ringo uttered, his right wing tapping the narrow bridge of his beak in thought.
Upon hearing this revelation, Scootaloo lifted her head, but just barely. "We've been going around in circles?!" she exclaimed, her voice cracking from exertion. "How is that even possible?" Her head slumped back on the ground again. "I give up. I'm too tired of walking. I've been walking even since before I crash landed on this dumb world."
Ringo lifted his gaze towards the sun. It slinked off towards the western skies, crowning the trees in the distance in a blaze of orange.
The dodo chuckled. "Dumb world. A perfectly apt analysis, I should say. Well nevermind. It's getting kind of late. We should make camp here."
"Get this stupid bag off me, then."
Ringo gave a sharp turn and pulled his carpet bag off the back of the cranky filly. "Rather contentious, aren't you?"
With an audible snap, Scootaloo's companion opened up the carpet bag and hauled out what seemed to be a miniature futon, which to the amazement of Scootaloo, started expanding in size until it was the proper dimensions for Ringo to lounge on.
As the dodo stretched out his wings while lying on the futon, he allowed a yawn to stuff his words. "Well I don't know about you, young lady, but..." He staved off a bout of drifting for a moment to finish his conversation. "I like sleeping under the stars. This cloak is blanket enough for my frame."
Scootaloo's eyes shimmered with eager anticipation, which faded when the only reply was Ringo turning his back to her. She frowned and stuck her nose inside the carpet bag, left still open, but this move proved to be unwise with disheartening results, as Ringo promptly reached over and snapped the clasp shut on the tip of Scootaloo's nose.
Scootaloo grabbed the end of her nose and started soothing it as several tears streamed from her eyes. "Ow," she muttered. After her pain had subsided, she gave Ringo a hard stare. "What about me?"
The bird sat up, turned around, folded back his hood and glared at her. "Excuse me, my fair lass, but what gave you the impression that I was expecting a tagalong, one who inexplicably and inexcusably landed on my rather expensive porcelain tea set, such that I carry around a spare bed in my carpet bag?"
Scootaloo pointed an accusing hoof at the bird. "Well YOU were the one who dragged me along on this 'indentured servitude' thing."
"That is a fair point, but it doesn't change the fact that this singular bedding is all I possess with that function. It shouldn't get too cold tonight. Go find a pile of leaves to sleep on."
Scootaloo pulled the corners of her mouth into a pout, but she soon looked around for a place to sleep.
"And don't even think about running away. I know some pretty good immobilization spells," came the voice of Ringo from behind Scootaloo's back as she picked out a mound of leaves and walked towards it.
She settled down into the pile of leaves, worming her body around the way a cat would to create an indentation to nestle down in. After fidgeting around for a few seconds, she finally found a comfortable position and curled up, briefly giving the twilight sky a look. The color of the sky was a mellow orange near the horizon that melted to deeper purples closer to the tops. Higher up, a few stars came twinkling out to play. As sleep overtook her body, a powerful longing for her parents burned in her heart, as she realized this was the first night she had ever fallen asleep without the knowledge that they were nearby and there for her. Several tears fell from her eyes as she fluttered them closed.
* * *
No, daddy! Don't!
Scootaloo's sleep was interrupted by her troubled dreams, and her eyes snapped open, only to see little more than the deep shadows of the trees around her. The twinkling stars above told her that it was still night. She breathed out once and shivered against the chill. The air didn't freeze her, but the cold was sufficient to make sleep uncomfortable, and her emotions didn't help keep her warm, either.
She lifted her head and spotted the lumpy shadow of the futon with Ringo curled up on it.
"Ringo?" she called, keeping her voice low.
All she heard was snoring. He was fast asleep. With a newfound determination, she slowly rose to her feet, trying to keep the rustling of the leaves to a minimum. She pursed her lips as she pondered her strange companion. She wondered if she should tag along for a bit because she realized he had saved her life and she felt a little shame over breaking his tea set. However, it didn't change the fact that he was trying to keep her captive.
"Hmph. Indentured servitude. I don't know what dentures have to do with anything, but I am NOT being anypony's servant."
Having made up her mind, she slinked away, tiptoeing past Ringo as he snored. In the deep shadows of night, everything blended together, and her sense of distance perception was completely off. Every rock and tree and bush looked like a lumpy black morass with fuzzed edges. Every rise and dip and tripping point in the land all seemed to smooth together in the darkness of night. She had to be careful where she stepped. Not knowing the area well, she decided to just follow the moon, as it provided the only source of light for her.
The moon here didn't seem all that different from Princess Luna's moon back in Equestria. Perhaps it seemed a tiny bit smaller. It currently made its trek across the sky in its first quarter phase. Despite not being able to see one half of the orb, she didn't recognize any of the seas on its surface. Listening in on Twilight during her "astronomy outings" had sown into Scootaloo a basic knowledge of picking out the seas on Equestria's moon, and none of them could be found on the moon she currently saw, finally cementing her belief that she was no longer anywhere on Equestria. She also saw something else out there among the moon. It appeared as sort of a red haze around one edge of the moon's otherwise silver halo. As she stared, she could've sworn she saw the tiniest sliver of what looked like a second moon, trying to peek out from behind the moon in front.
Scootaloo turned her attention back towards walking without bumping into or tripping over something. As she walked, she suddenly wished she had at least brought along her Cutie Mark Crusaders' cape. She would've welcomed what little warmth and comfort it brought her. As her situation stood, the chill air was getting to her and causing goosebumps to form on her body. The chill in her body, however, soon gave away to a chill in her heart. A primal fear rose up within her when she heard a loud moaning and whooshing sound, almost as if the wind developed a life of its own and had decided to taunt her. Fearing the Dark Wind hid in the deep shadows of the night and would soon come take her life, she glanced about this way and that, looking fearfully at every rock, tree, and shadow for any sign of danger.
The sound seemed to multiply and grow louder. The very air seemed to confuse and misdirect her, as it carried the sound all around her on echoes off of the trees. Unable to pinpoint where the danger lay, she reached the conclusion that danger was all around her. Sweat poured from her body, and her breathing became rapid and shallow. She imagined that every shadow seemed to want to swallow her up, and the woods suddenly took on a menacing tone to her frightened imagination. The trees no longer seemed friendly but instead took on patches of darkness that twisted to form howling mouths and penetrating eyes. The ends of the branches seemed to become dagger-like fingers that reached for her, seeking to snatch her up. Scootaloo found that the longer the moaning went on around her, the more difficult it became to repress the urge to break into a run.
The wind suddenly changed direction yet again, and Scootaloo heard another moan, but one that seemed very close and of a higher pitch than what she had been hearing so far. She turned her head and saw a mass of shadows crest the top of a small hill behind her. This black morass seemed different from the Dark Wind that had taken the wandering goose. It had lumbered up the hill, like a black bear would when on the prowl, and it didn't possess the same whirling, chaotic etherealness, although she still had trouble making out a defined outline. What came next, though, threatened to draw all of the air out of her lungs, as the black shape gave her two definite things that attracted her eyes' focus. Tiny red points of light sprouted up in a high spot on the shape, or perhaps rather they flared up, silently and ghost-like. The points of light even flickered and danced like flames, and Scootaloo realized to her horror that they were eyes.
Another black shape appeared. Two more eyes.
Then another set of eyes.
Then another.
An element of black shapes, each with two burning, searching red eyes, stood behind her on top of that lone hill, and a chorus of moaning filled the air. Scootaloo wanted to cry, but she knew it would only result in her being swarmed and killed. She instead broke into a run. The whooshing started again, and she imagined that whatever creatures were behind her were giving chase.
Scootaloo's legs pumped and flexed and pushed at the ground faster than she had ever known. Her hooves hit hard rocks and raised tree roots, and she pushed her way through brambles and undergrowth. She stumbled many times but always got up to continue running, despite her diminished vision. It wasn't long, however, before she became covered in cuts and bruises and fatigue burned her lungs, threatening to slow her down.
A whooshing and moaning noise assaulted her right ear, uncomfortably close, and before she knew what had happened, she felt a powerful blow from her right side. She was pitched sideways, and a dip in the land took her by surprise. She tumbled down the embankment, colliding with every single pinecone, small tree, and boulder that seemed to be on the slope on the way down. As her vision whirled end over end, she could see that she was falling towards a small river. At the bottom lay a rocky bank, skirting the near side of the river. The collision came full force, and an electric jolt of pain lanced up her right side with a low crack. She moaned out in pain and kept still as the throbbing in the injury began. She dared not move, but another round of whooshing could be heard above her. She turned her head ever so slightly just in time to see the black shapes jet down the embankment with supernatural speed. As they reached the bottom and got closer to her, Scootaloo could see that behind the burning eyes, the shapes resembled shadowy wolves, but their movement and speed were extraordinary and unnatural.
Staring at her imminent doom square in the eyes, Scootaloo felt a powerful desire to live well up from deep within. This power manifested itself in a need to shout. The creatures lurched ever closer, pressing dark, shadowy feet to the ground.
"No! Stay back! Keep away!" Scootaloo exclaimed at the monsters.
Her words echoed off the rocks and trees, and Scootaloo was amazed at the power and volume in which they left her lungs. She suddenly felt a pulsing and radiating warmth on her back, and she no longer felt the chill of the air. The creatures stepped back a few steps, balking as if on retreat, but the exertion of shouting took its toll on her body, and she nearly fainted. The wolves saw their opportunity and lurched forwards, but then jumped back again as Scootaloo heard a series of low thuds. It took a while for her to realize what was unfolding around her, as she drifted in and out of consciousness, but she soon realized that the wolves were getting assaulted by a flurry of rocks. One wolf received a blow square on the nose, and it yelped in pain, which gave Scootaloo some satisfaction.
As light crept past the trees with the coming dawn, a strange new shadow leaped in among the wolves like a sudden hurricane. Scootaloo's vision became blurry again as it became increasingly more difficult to maintain her consciousness, but she could see that the stranger seemed to wave about a wooden sword, striking at the wolves with an impressive flourish and keeping them at bay.
Finally Scootaloo couldn't keep her presence of mind any longer, but as she drifted into unconsciousness, she thought she felt her rescuer pick her up and talk to her.
"Honk!" came the last thing she heard before sleep overtook her.