Scootaloo finally breaks. She has taken what life has thrown her. But it became too much. She has to deal with it in more ways than one. She feels lost and alone. She doesn't understand what's happening. What she doesn't know is that help is always just a hoofstep away.
This is the first fic I'v posted so constructive criticism will be apreciated. The pic is just one I found on the internet by the way
“You can’t do anything right!” He shouted “Absolutely NOTHING!!!” His hoof met my nose with a crunch and a crack.
My nose was broken. I could feel it, but the fact he hit me hurt even more. The pain inflicted on my nose was nothing to what my heart was feeling. Whimpering, I brought my hoofs to may face in hope to protect myself.
He pulled his hoof towards him. It was broken. He looked at it hanging limply “Ahh buck. Look what you did now, Scootaloo. You broke my bucking hoof.” Rage filled his eyes and he started limping across the wooden floor towards me. “Now come here you chicken”
His words stung my heart. My own father. Feeling hollow and empty, still whimpering and blood flowing from my nose, I felt lost. I was used to his words but he never called me that before. My brow furrowed in anger.
“NO! I have had enough of this. Ever since mum died you've been going at me. Why dad? WHY!?”
“Because you are worthless! You can’t fly -I had to buy this house in town because of that-, and you don’t listen. You spend all day out of the house doing what? Looking for your cutie mark. Do you know why you don’t have it? It’s because you are useless, talentless and just a plain waste of space! You're mother should have killed you before she killed herself!" He then turned onto his uninjured fore hoof to buck me.
His hoofs met nothing but air. Falling down, he tried to put his injured hoof down to stop his descent. It struck the floor, twisting in a disturbing way and caused him to scream in pain.
I bolted to my room, trying to get away from him before he could recover. Closing the door, I stuck a chair against the handle in hope to stop him. I felt so hollow as I slowly stepped away from the door.
Walking to the corner, I glanced at the mirror. There, looking at me, was a little orange filly with scattered purple hair. Her violet eyes were red and one was close to swollen shut. Pouring down her face mingling with tears was a steady flow of blood. Most noticeable was the look in her face. The look that told her she had lost all she had. Her mother and now even her father.
A banging at the bedroom door brought me back to my senses.
Not him again
Looking hopelessly around my room, I saw my open window. My chance of freedom, my chance for safety.
“Scootaloo open this door now!” His shouts were slightly muffled by the door
Grabbing my scooter, I ran the short distance and jumped through. Forgetting I was on the second story, I buzzed my wings in hope to slow my descent.
The result was a face full of dirt. Screaming at the pain that shot through my broken nose, I didn't notice the banging from the bedroom had stopped.
Ignoring the pain, I got up and snatched my scooter from the place it fell. Gripping the handlebars in my fore hoofs and pushing off with the back ones, I started picking up speed. The buzzing of my wings muffled the sound of the front door opening.
“GET BACK HERE!” he shouted. I just pumped my wings faster in response.
“SCOOtaloo...” his voice faded away as I rounded the corner.
The trip itself was smooth, but with a half closed eye and a bleeding nose obscuring my view, I misjudged a corner and painfully tumbled into a wall. Curling up in pain, I realised I had nowhere to go. Nopony to help me and no family. There was always the CMC but Applebloom was helping her sister and so was Sweetie Belle.
Then I remembered the clubhouse. My last place for a safety. Ignoring the pain, I picked up my scooter from the floor and pushed off.
Upon reaching the clubhouse minutes later, I discarded my scooter in the bushes so it wouldn’t get spotted before walking up the steps. Closing the clubhouse door, I leaned against the far wall and started to slowly slide down.
The realization of what my father said to me hit me with the subtlety of a brick wall. He never called me a chicken before. That particular insult brought up by the meanest pony she knew. Diamond tiara. But what had hurt worse was that one sentence.
Your mother should have killed you before she killed herself!
Just that sentence kept playing and playing in my head like a broken record player. He couldn't have meant it... could he?
Then everything he said had meaning. I am worthless. I am a nopony.
“And nopony will miss me when I’m gone.”
Sure, I had Applebloom and Sweetie Belle. But that was it. Just two ponies to remember me. They'll get over it.
Diamond tiara had been right. I am a worthless chicken. I am a waste of space. I am talentless.
The best thing I could no now for everypony its to leave and give my space to somepony else. Somepony who could do better than I could.
I had a plan now.
Leaving the confines of the clubhouse, I proceeded to ghastly gorge. I guess now I can finally see if I’m a chicken.
Reaching the gorge, I could see how it got its name. Down below, from a hundred meter drop, was a mass of protruding rocks and pitfalls.
“Well, scoots, I guess it’s time to see...”
Looking down and reflecting on the day... and my life, I just felt hollow. This is what my life came down too.
Just a step. I can do that. I smiled at the thought. Either way, if I fly or not, I might just be accepted.
“Come on. Just a step.”
“Just one...”
Well here goes nothing.
“Wait. I am nothing”
That put a smile on my face.
I took the step. Or rather a leap.
With the wind whistling past my ears and the feeling of weightlessness taking hold. Only one thing could go through my mind.
A sad little thought. It gave me something else than the fast approaching ground to focus on. So I focused on it and tried to remember her.
Closing my eyes, I could picture her face. Her mane was made of a similar puff shape that was seen on Pinkie Pie, but strawberry blond, with that same ability to defy the laws of gravity. Her fur the colour of fallen snow and her golden eyes were always filled with such joy and her attitude was much like a surprise box. She always had a trick hidden in a cloud that would bring a smile on a ponies faces.
Then I took the matter at hoof. Still keeping my eyes closed, I embraced the feeling of free fall.
I could feel the weightlessness take hold of my body, bringing me down the gorge faster and faster.
So this is what it feels like to fly.
It felt so natural, so real. I opened my wings to relish in the moment, enjoying the feeling of wind flowing past them, ruffling feathers and fur, my hair whipping back behind my head. Just like how it did on the scooter when I forgot my helmet. It felt free. I felt free.
I opened my eyes. The image of my mother faded and I was greeted with the sight of the fast approaching ground.
My instincts took hold and my wings swivelled to create a drag. It wasn't working. Flapping frantically wasn't working either. I quickly began to regret my decision.
Wait what does rainbow dash do in a dive?
Remembering the form that RD takes, I tried to mimic it. I pointed my head down and tucked my hooves in. My wings folded in and I held the form
The speed was picking up now but I needed to wait.
Wait for it. Wait for it. Wait. NOW, Scoots!
My wings opened and could feel the force of the wind catching on. This time instead of swivelling my wings I tilted my body.
It worked, its working. I was picking up speed but I wasn't traveling straight down to my doom. I was going diagonally. I tilted more.
Yes!
I was now flying in a horizontal angle free from decent.
I stretched my wings as wide as I could, feeling them pop and crack. I now realised why I couldn't fly before. I'm so used to flapping my wings close to my body with a buzzing pattern but not with them fully stretched out and flapping hard and powerful. This created a better control of the air around me.
"I can fly!" I squeed to myself.
I loved the feeling, I felt free, I felt as if I could go anywhere, I felt safe.
But I forgot something.
I'm still in the gorge.
The reality hit me hard. Literally. My left wing caught onto an protruding rock. Spinning wildly out of control and pulling in my wing from the sudden pain that was inflicted.
Something was wrong. It was broken and I am now in some serious pain. I looked up to see a fast approaching cliff face.
"Oomph"
I bounced head first off the cliff and landed hard on my injured wing.
"Ahh! My wing. Sweet Celestia!"
I screamed from both the rebroken nose and shattered wing.
I cried. I thought I had the strength to do this. I didn't.
I'm nothing but a coward, a coward who can't even fly right. Dad was right. I am useless. This was all pointless. The last thing I could do right and I failed.
That feeling took hold. I felt hollow. I felt as if I truly did mean nothing in this life. The one time I could fly and I messed up. Still crying from the pain, I could feel myself losing a grip on reality. Both from blood pouring out my nose and the immense pain I'm feeling, I could do nothing but let the dark haze take control.
My vision started tunnelling. I rolled and looked to the sky. It was a bright day. Being in this dark gorge made it feel even brighter.
I enjoyed the sunshine and blue skies while I waited for the bliss of unconscious.
Slowly my vision darkened till the point I could see just a dull comparison to earlier.
Well maybe this isn't the way I'd thought I'd go but it'll have to do.
With that thought I let reality slip then stopped and tried to fight. I saw something other than rock and sky.
Keeping my eyes closed, too scared to see what awaited me, I listened and felt my surroundings.
I could feel some warmth over my injured wing and the embrace of a sling. My nose still felt sore but not as much as before. I could feel something sticking into my right fore leg and wires running up past my shoulder. A steady and distant beeping reached my ears. I tried to swivel them to locate the source of the sound. I couldn't, the same warm encasing feeling I had on my wing was the same as that on my head, they were covered in bandages. Then I took a breath in through my nose, the smell of disinfectant and sterilized air was strong.
Wait beeping, bandages and a funny smell. I’m in a hospital, I’m not dead.
I don’t want to be here, It just meant that I'm now a bigger burden on even more ponies. Just a waste of space and time.
Great.
Then, a sound I wasn't expecting reached my ears. Snoring. I slowly opened my eyes and what greeted me was a sight I was not prepared for.
“Rainbow Dash!?”
There, slumped on the end of my bed, was a worn out Rainbow Dash. Here, at the end of my bed. She was asleep, her snores reverberated around the room and even shook the windows. Her mouth opened and closed in an almost comedic manner. Her mane was ragged and stuck up in places, but what was strikingly apparent was the blood covering her fore hoofs, giving a powerful contrast from deep red to cyan.
I scanned over her. Other than looking tired, she had no visible injuries. Where did the blood come from?
From the doorway came the sound of hoof steps. Dash and I were the only ponies in the room, leaving the other three beds unoccupied. Hopefully the pony making the noise was just passing. I wasn't ready to see another pony yet. Not after my most recent failure.
I wasn't so lucky
"Miss Scootaloo. I see you're awake," stated the brown toned doctor. He raised his hoof to push a lock of grey hair out his eyes and carried on talking. "I'm doctor Mend. The injuries you sustained might have been fatal had not miss Dash found you."
So that was the rainbow streak I saw. Also explains why dash is here.
"The hit to you head cracked your skull and your left wing is broken in multiple locations."
Well that explains the bandages.
"Your nose will straighten and the bruises to your face should heal in the next week or so. The stitches on your head can come out in a few days."
Great. Stitches.
"The crack to your skull isn't too severe but we may need to do surgery to place a plate over it to keep it from splitting."
Well, that's nice.
"Your wing will take close to a month to heal."
Amazing. I finally figure out how to fly and I'm earthbound for the next month.
“After a weeks stay in the hospital, miss Dash here has offered a place to rest after you get discharged due to your father also being the hospital.”
So they kick me out after a week tha... "Wait what!?"
"Once the majority of your injuries heal, you will be discharged. We est-"
"No-no. After that," I interrupted.
"Oh. Miss Dash here has stated that you will be spending the remainder of your recovery in her house."
I looked to Rainbow Dash just in time to see her open her eyes. While she raised her hoofs to wipe her eyes I tried to hide under the sheets, but trying to slide under only resulted in hurting my wing.
"Ow."
Dash stopped rubbing her eyes and looked at me.
"Hey, squirt," she said. Then looked towards the doctor, "So, doc, how long is she gonna be here?"
"Well, due to the severity of most of her injuries and the possible hemorrhaging to the-"
"Doc. How long?" she interrupted impatiently.
"Oh. Roughly a week. Then she can be discharged." He stated, sounding a bit annoyed by being interrupted again.
Rainbow looked towards me. Worry filled her eyes. "Doc, can you give us a minute?"
"Sure." He picked up a chart from the end of my bed and walked out, closing the door softly.
"Listen, kid, I'm not much for mushy talk, but that was a nasty crash. Are you okay?” She started to try and wipe the blood off her hoofs.
"Yeah, I'm fine... How did you find me?" I mumbled.
"Oh, I saw you crash in town and wanted to see if you were ok. By the time I landed you were gone. So I went around trying to find you. I was heading to whitetail woods when I passed over the gorge. I saw you pull up from the dive. You shot off down the gorge so fast I couldn't see you. I flew after you and saw you on the... There was way too much blood." During this I could see her eyes glazing over. "I thought you were... I brought you here as fast as I could. When they had you in surgery I went to find your dad. He's in the next room. Do you want me to get him for ya?"
"NO. I mean... no it's fine. I don't really want to see him now." I didn't notice myself shaking.
Your mother should have killed you along with herself!
I couldn't help crying. The shaking became worse when I tried to hide it. Rainbow caught on.
I closed my eyes. I couldn't let her see me like this.
"Can I have a moment, please, Dash?"
"No." Just as that was said I could feel a comforting hug. "I'm here for ya, kid. I ain't the element of loyalty for nothin. I ain't leavin ya, kid." The hug got tighter.
I leaned in and hugged back. Taking the comfort from the hug, I broke. For what felt like the hundredth time this day, I cried... and cried... and cried. I cried till I ran I out of tears.
"You know what, kid? I know the feeling," she whispered in my ear.
How could she know what it feels like to be wished dead by somepony. Especially when its their own father.
"Don't tell anyone this, okay? Pinkie swear on it." She let go and sat next to me.
I went through the motions and mouthed the words. Hiccuping from the crying I got to the end of the swear.
"I was around you age when my mother left one day. She and dad got into a fight about me going to flight school. She wanted me to go but dad was convinced I was too weak a flyer. She didn't agree. She stormed off out the door. A few days later the Cloudsdale guards called. They said she died in a storm that swept in over from the Everfree. We got a closed coffin funeral. I never got the chance to say goodbye. Dad never got the chance to say sorry. He blamed me for it. He beat me for even the smallest mistakes. Every little thing I did wrong.” She took a shuddering breath.
“The day I came home with my cutie mark was the day my father kicked me out. The last thing he said was that I never deserved the mark I got. It broke me. I was left wandering Cloudsdale for days trying to find food and a place to stay.”
I moved closer to her. She had tears falling off her chin.
I guess she does know the feeling.
I slid next to her and wrapped my forelegs around her, putting my head against her shoulder. She hugged back and rested her head on mine, careful to avoid the stitches. We sat in comfortable silence. A few minutes later, she started talking.
“The next bit I tell you is not just my secret but Fluttershy’s too. Please, nopony must know.”
“You can trust me.”
“Ok. Well, after about a week of wandering aimlessly around Cloudsdale, I decided there was nothing there for me.”
“I flew down to the Ponyville Orphanage. A very quiet place. There was only one caretaker, Cheerilee, she took me in without question. Then she introduced me to the only other orphan that was there. Fluttershy. She got kicked out of home due to her parents both being unicorns and did not like having ‘bird scum’ in their house. She had stayed with a disowned cousin in Cloudsdale. This stallion did some really bad thing to her. So bad that if I saw him I would probably start kicking him and wouldn't stop till my legs fell off! I swear if...” she took a deep breath.
“Well, after she fell out of Cloudsdale and discovered her cutie mark, she stayed on the ground. About a day later, Cheerilee found her and took her in. Cheerilee paid for the remainder of my schooling in Cloudsdale and taught Fluttershy here in Ponyville. Since then, me, Flutters, and Cheerilee have been like family.”
I looked up at Rainbow Dash. Although there were still tears coming down her eyes, she had a smile. She was at peace. Looking away from the window, she looked into my eyes.
Just those few words uttered by her soothed me. The feeling of safety was overwhelming. With Rainbow Dash in my presence, I felt safe.
Still in a tight hug and tears falling from both our eyes, I felt the feeling of closeness and love, something I never felt since my mom passed away. There was something else. It was a feeling that I never felt when with my father. It was my mother who last gave me the feeling. Security. It may be too soon but my mind has decided that Dash was my emotional rock, and my heart is saying that she will never let me down.
Reassured from both her words and myself, I felt happy.
I snuggled closer and put my head into the crook of her shoulder, smiling to myself.
A short lived happiness, though. Indecipherable murmuring floated through the wall. The pitch and tone matched the one pony I did not want to see. Just the sound made me lose my new found joy and safety. I got scared again and started hugging Dash tighter.
"Thanks, Dash. But... what's going to happen after?" I mumbled
"Whatcha mean, kiddo?"
"Well, after I'm out the hospital. What's going to happen then?"
"Well, because your father is in the hospital and there won't be anyone else to look after you, the doc asked if I could take you in." Her words were reassuring, but my fear continued to rise.
"But I don't want to go home to him... I don't want to go." Pushing my face closer to her I started to cry
"I don't wanna go."
"Hey, kid, it's alright, you're not gonna go back there," she reassured. "I'm not gonna let that happen"
I could hear the firmness in her voice. I still felt scared.
"He's just in the next room. What if he finds me?"
"I'll talk to the doc about it, okay? He won't get you. Hell, I'm not gonna be leaving this room till you're better. Or if I need the loo." She smiled at the last bit. I couldn't help but giggle a bit.
Still giggling, I saw the doctor walk in with the chart in his mouth.
"Ahh, I see both your moods have brightened." He mumbled through the chart.
"Yeah," said Rainbow, still smiling. "So, doc, what's the news?"
"Well, looking at the X-rays, I can tell you that after your bones are healed you can start flying again. That may be a month or so, and the crack to your skull is minor and should heal itself." He placed the chart back onto the bottom of my bed.
"Umm, doc, there is something I would like to speak to you about," Rainbow said with a sudden stoic behavior. "Outside."
"Okay," replied the doctor.
"Be back in a second, kid"
"Okay, Dash," I said still smiling.
As the duo left the room it gave me some time to think and mull over things. Fanfilly things.
Ohmygoshomygoshohmygosh Rainbow Dash was hugging me! Wait. I'm going to be living with her I silently squeed. Just imagining myself walking through her cloud corridors brought me momentary bliss. Sitting in her living room, climbing the stairs, just being inside would make me happy for a lifetime. I've seen the cloud mansion from the outside. As big as it was from the outside, I couldn't fathom the size of it indoors.
This means I’m gonna be with her all the time. She might even teach me to fly as good as her. She might let me join her weather team. Yay!
My thoughts were then interrupted by the slowly growing volume in the talking between the doc and Rainbow Dash. Although the door was thick enough to block the start of the conversation, the now aggravated voice from Rainbow became clear.
“He can’t get near her, doc! It’s his fault she’s in here!”
Whatever the doctor replied was illegible to me other than a few mumblings about rights and policies.
“You can’t be serious, doc. He’s just gonna put her straight back in here when she gets back home.” After that, she started getting quieter, and her voice reverted back to just murmurings through the door.
It might not be dad who puts me back in here. I thought solemnly. If it comes to that I better make sure I succeed.
Looking down on the dull green sheets where a few of Rainbows hairs were left over. She might miss me. Well that's one more person to miss me. Great.
The door opened to reveal a flustered Rainbow Dash.
"Listen Scoots, we might have to talk to the guards about this situation." She stated in a stoic attitude "There's another thing and you might not like it."
