> Manehatten Blues
>  by Lethrael
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Manehatten Blues
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“When you need anything, we're downstairs, the first door to the left.”
She nodded slowly and forced a nervous smile on her face. It faded away quickly and she sighed. She closed the door with a bang of her back hoof and was alone. Alone, finally alone.
She stepped slowly further into the small apartment and looked down the cramped corridor. The dark brown floor seemed to look back at her, almost as he would be able to read her mind. The pale walls without any visible joint and any kind of memory depressed her a little bit. 

Her hooves clapped silently over the wooden plank and deeper into her new home. White hooves who were shivering, white hooves who were holding a pony upright, who was still young, but wasn't a small filly any more. She crossed the corridor, looked into a mirror to her left and sighed to her reflection. The only thing that remained the same and looked almost perfect was her mane. The two coloured pigtail an the forelock were in good shape and held in place by a silver barrette. She looked down her mane and eyed up her horn, or the feeble rest of it. The shattered pieces in her forehead began to hurt and she sniffled once.
Why was that so difficult?

She eyed up her Cutie Mark and gulped down a lump in her throat.
“Ugh, Apple Bloom, I wish I could stay...”
Her voice faded away with a squeak and her whole body shivered. She raised one hoof to her forehead and shut her eyes with a suppressed whimper. Tears gathered in her eyes and she hissed out a lungful of breath. She stumbled shivering into another room and fell down on a couch.
Sparkling lights forced their ways out of the ruin of her horn. She tried to discharge the magic with a fondling hoof, but the hoof trembled under the pain of a spark. She scratched over another sharp edge and laid her head on a pillow, gasped faster and more painful in every second. She searched in her saddlebags with her other hoof and pulled out clothes, a stuffed animal and finally a picture. 
She growled frustrated, till she found what she was looking for. She pulled out a small glass bottle, opened it with her teethe and took a long sip. She cringed, grimaced in disgust and sighed again. 

Her breath calmed down her breath slowly but surly and she was able to look at the things she had pulled out so hastily. 
A stuffed pony with an everlasting smile and a really cute expression on her face stared back at her.
“Scootaloo would be pleased to get it, you know.”
Out of Rarity's eyes streamed tears, as she looked to Sweetie Belle's horn and hugged her closely.
The young mare broke her hug quickly and nodded sincere. She didn't know if she even would see Scootaloo in the first place, but she put the stuffed pony in her saddlebag anyway.
The picture was a present from Twilight and Sweetie's expression softened as she looked at it.
“Sweetie Belle we could try...”
The shatterhorn sighed and shook her head.
“I don't want to, Twilight!”
She sounded so sad and bugged in her memory and...somepony knocked.

First she tried to open the door with levitation magic, but as nothing happened, she remembered and stood up slowly. She picked up everything and put it back into her saddlebags, laid it on a table and turned away. She walked slowly to the door, brushed over her mane, forced a smile back on her face and opened the door with her mouth.
The taste of the cheap detergent was disgusting and made her stuck out her tongue. Sweetie felt a hoof around her neck as her guest rushed over the step and a buzzing sound filled her ears.
“Hey Sweetie. I'm so glad to come across you here. I wanted to be the first to welcome you in Manehatten.”
Sweetie Belle would recognise this voice under thousands. She cuddled her head firmly against a warm shoulder and rubbed her eyes on a purple mane. A gentle hoof petted over her mane and her guest closed the door with a bang. But this time by a gust of wind. 

The other mare led the quietly sobbing mare back into her living room and laid down there, cuddling closely to her.
“Sweetie, I thought you had unpacked already.”
Sweetie Belle shook her head silently and sighed low into the orange coat. She responded in a hoarsely way and cleared her throat.
“This was a lousy attempt to cheer me up, Scootaloo. I need It for that. I'm missing It so badly.”
A snort was the only answer and Scootaloo pushed the former unicorn back onto her hooves. She laid one of her own hooves under Sweetie's chin, raised her head gently and looked deeply into her eyes.
“Hey, I know.
Nopony should deserve it more and should get her horn back, but Twilight said...”
Sweetie interrupted her oldest friend with a furious yell. Scootaloo flinched a step away and brushed over her mane with one hoof. Than she came back and laid a hoof around Sweetie Belle's shoulder again. Rather to suppress her urge to flee, than to calm the other mare down.
“And that's why you move from Ponyville,
because you think it is hard to don't have a horn, don't you?”
Sweetie Belle snorted and tried to get rid of the hoof, but her friend was oddly well trained to hug somepony, who didn't want to be hugged, that she was brushed off by one weak hit.
“I moved, because I wanted a second opinion on the whole horn healing thing and to push my carer.
Also Manhatten would have more Cutie Mark problems, than in Ponyville and...”
The stammered explanation faded more and more away and finally Sweetie bit her lips. Scootaloo sighed and let her go.
“You know, that's what I have said too.
But than I was laying in an empty apartment and stared mopish against the wall.
Do you remember as I had said, that I want to go at all costs?
I wish you had stopped me.”

For a moment Scootaloo gazed to the empty walls and shook herself. The former unicorn followed her look with her own eyes and brushed away the hoof. She flinched two steps away from her friend and answered with a low spirited whisper.
“We have tried to stop you, remember?
But you wanted to go so badly.”
Scootaloo's wings unfolded themselves, like they had a mind on their own and she sighed, as she felt it. Her eyes went over Sweetie's face and for a short moment, the former unicorn saw a glimmer of despair in them. A feeling she could well understand right now.
“I just wanted to leave.
You know why.”
She buzzed her wings shortly and sighed again. Sweetie Belle nodded and approached her hesitantly. She raised a hoof and hugged her friend.

She started to come out of her own sadness, as she saw how much struggle Scootaloo had to stay calm.
“But than you simply vanished.
No letters, no visits, you're lost in the city.
Even Rainbow wasn't able to find you.
What happened?”
First Scootaloo shook simply her head, but she couldn't resist Sweetie's glance for long and hissed a name.
“Night Glider.”
The cold in her voice summoned a short cold blast, who blew down in the living room and both young mares shivered. Scootaloo thumped her hoof once and cringed. She continued telling in a low voice.
“One evening, I left the apartment and wanted to have fun.
I went dancing, drunk a few mugs and there was a sweet and nice stallion, who schmoozed me.
I didn't have any clue, what he wanted and as I found out it was too late.”
Scootaloo turned away her head from Sweetie Belle and looked down in one corner. Her voice sounded so low and ashamed, that the shatterhorn didn't know, what she should say and  so she opened and closed her mouth.
But Scootaloo hadn't finished right now and moved on with a low sob. Her eyes became unfocussed, as the memory overwhelmed her.
“He wanted me. And he took me.
But after that he disappeared and I have never seen him again.
It was...so...”
Sweetie hugged Scootaloo closer and her friend returned to the present. The former unicorn forced a smile back on her face and led the shivering mare into an adjacent room. There stood a white stove and a sole bare table. First Sweetie wanted to put a kettle on the fire and tried to open the shelves with her magic, but than she remembered and sighed. 

So she placed Scootaloo on the only seat, started to open every shelve with her hooves and searched for anything she needed.
“Why didn't you say so?
We are your...Oh dammed where is this kettle?”
She had opened four shelves, but they were empty. Every single one was empty!
She realised just right now, that she had moved today and hadn't unpacked anything. She looked into the clean, but void like emptiness of the shelves. She gave up, sighed and sat shivering down in front of the stove. Her eyes wandered over the small work surface, over the open shelves and stayed in the depth of one of them. She stared into it and gasped faster and faster.

Scootaloo looked down to the tabletop, it reminded her to her first own table, even the white grain was the same. She chewed on her lips and breathed out deeply.
“But it went better after that!
I found good friends here and even my marefriend, Blue Velvet.”
Her voice was getting back to an almost happy, but clearly lyrical tone, as she whispered the name.  A sob from Sweetie Belle made her sit up and take notice. She turned her head away from the tabletop. Sweetie Belle shivered and pressed her ears flat against her head, as she tried to suppress more sobs. But she simply couldn't.
“Hey, Sweetie are you alright?”
This question startled her up and she turned her head to Scootaloo again. A warm hoof pulled her into an even warmer hug and waved surprisingly gentle over her mane.
“Don't worry, I'm here for you.”

Sweetie shut her eyes under Scootaloo's friendly tone and cuddled up her hornless head against the coat of her friend.
“I just wanted to go home!”
She couldn't say more and Scootaloo sighed, as her friend started to sob and tears wept into her coat.
“You're getting over it, Sweetie?
And than it will feel like home, too. I promise!”
Scootaloo nuzzled her friend and snuggled her head against her mane. She looked into the empty shelves and her ears flapped once.
Like her own first night. Like her own recommencement.
But she was alone for the first time and didn't want, that her friend would experience the same.
She didn't want her to feel as lonely as she had done or that she met somepony who just wanted to have his way with her.

Scootaloo thought again about her own experiences with Night Glider and cringed.
She clenched her teeth and a lugubrious smile appeared on her face.
“I have gotten her from him.
Oh Sweetie Belle, I'll bring her along the next time.
I didn't wanted to show her her mum and another mare so homesick and sad.
Blue Hope is...so sweat and kind.”
Sweetie Belle's ears went up again and she raised her head.
A question interrupted her sobbing.
“Blue Hope?”
Her eyes widened, as she understood the sentence before and remembered, what Rarity had said earlier.
Scootaloo nodded and hugged Sweetie Belle again.

Both mares left the apartment and Sweetie Belle closed the door slowly behind her. Her voice drifted through the corridor, lingered in the, now halfway comfortable arranged, living room and arrived finally the kitchen with well filled shelves, a filled kettle on the stove and two cups on the table.
“You have to show me her, Scootaloo.
And I want to know anything from her.”
Before the door was completely closed and the mares fell silent, one half of Scootaloo's answer sounded through the rooms.
“First you have to meet Blue Velvet,
She is...my very special somepony and...”
The door closed with a low click and the clopping of hooves went away outside.