Twilight has her friends over at her castle for a quiet "Library Party" of reading and discussion. Rarity brings up an uncomfortable subject that Twilight has been avoiding for a while now, forcing her to confront and discuss the issue.

It doesn't go how ANY of them expected.

A bright and beautiful day in Canterlot, perfect for picnics, goes sour when a dark fog holding nightmarish things rolls in without warning. Ponies everywhere are suddenly cowering in fear or fleeing in terror.

Abandoned and lost in the darkness, a small filly comes across a reason to fight back and knows just the friend to help her do so.

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Flagging this as "Dark" because it deals with fear, though it should all fit under the "Everyone" rating as it's bloodless and at worst a little scary.

This was an exercise and experiment for me, an attempt to write something a little more descriptive and evocative than the usual 'adventure' stuff bouncing around in my head.

The seed of the idea for this story came to me late May from reading another story, The Monster in Twilight by Georg and the author's recurring use of Smarty Pants in both it and its sequel as a source of comfort for troubled ponies. I began thinking, 'what if the little doll was so good at her job that she became an artifact?' and from there the rest of the setting and story sort of fell into place and wouldn't stop bugging me until I'd written it all down.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle are well aware of Scootaloo’s trouble flying, but usually they don’t care. They’re Scootaloo’s friends, after all, and her ability to fly has no bearing on that. But this year they’re having trouble coming up with a gift for her birthday, until they get an idea that seems worth a try: Find a way to get Scootaloo into the air under her own wingpower.

Nothing has worked for Scootaloo thus far, but maybe a little friendship can give her a boost.

Thanks go out to my friend DarkGriffon for being my first Guinea pig and giving my wonderful feedback on the first draft.

This story was begun a while back, just before Season 4 in fact, but I really dragged my hooves writing it, so some of it is a bit dated. I picked at it, but was ultimately inspired to really go for it by another fic, "Light the Sky on Fire" by EquesTRON which does this concept WAY better. Nevertheless, I wanted to write some Scootalove and see if I couldn't generate some feels while getting some practice actually finishing a story. I probably should have found a serious editor for it, but I wanted to just get it out there without making up more excuses to procrastinate. If even one other person enjoys it, I'll consider it a success.

--Edit: Linked to the editor's profile since he finally got an account here.