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What Dreams May Come
"If Derpy can do it, I can too."
Scootaloo set one hoof up on the railing of the Cutie Mark Crusader's clubhouse.
Sweetie Belle retorted, "She's a full grown mare, and you're not!"
Scootaloo added another to the railing.
"Doesn't matter, Flurry is a baby. I'm way older than her."
Then Scootaloo clambered upon until she was precariously balanced on the narrow railing.
Applebloom corrected, "She's an alicorn, that's different!"
"Yeah, well, not all of us have magic parents."
Scootaloo's cheeks grew a hot, cherry red. She scrunched up her nose and forced the feelings down where they came from. She had to focus on the task at hoof.
"I'm not watching," said Sweetie Belle, covering her eyes.
"I'll get the bandaids ready," said Applebloom, turning to fetch them from the clubhouse.
Scootaloo scowled at her unsupportive compatriots.
"You two BETTER stay here and witness my moment of triumph. If you don't, who will tell anypony I actually did it?"
"Okay, but just this once and never, ever again,” said Sweetie Belle.
"You got less sense than one of Flim and Flam's customers,” critiqued Applebloom.
"One, twoooo, THREE!" said Scootaloo as she launched herself from the treehouse railing, wings spread wide, flapping and eager. She hung in the air. She coasted forward on the momentum of her jump. The air pressed back against her beating wings. Up, she was going up!
Then she reached the apogee of her jump. Her wings kept flapping, but no lift came. Too small. Too weak. Too useless.
Her vision blurred as she tilted downwards towards the ground. She could hear one of her friends shriek and the other shout. Droplets of tears streaked along the sides of her face as the ground rushed up to meet her.
Then darkness.
But only for a second.
She awoke some time later in Ponyville Hospital. Her head pounded and her mouth was dry. More than anything she wanted water. She reached out with a hoof and leaned forward. She felt along the table connected to the hospital bed. Shifting forward she stretched her right wing and agony shot through her spine.
She dropped back into the bed.
She began to cry. It wasn't fair. She had tried so hard. Why could so many others do what she could not? Even the Earth ponies were built for more than she was. She wept softly to herself, blubbering, wallowing.
Then she felt the squeeze of a hoof on her own, soon joined by another.
"Hey, don't cry, we're here, okay? You're gonna be fine," comforted Applebloom.
"Lemme get you something to drink." Applebloom pressed a glass to Scootaloo's mouth and the young mare choked back one last ragged snot filled sob before sipping from the glass. One of her eyes was swollen shut, but the other was not, and she saw her two best friends hovering over her.
"T-T-Thanks" she sputtered, taking another long draw and emptying the glass. Glug, glug, glug.
Rainbow Dash poked her head past the privacy curtain around the trio. "Hey, sport, you're awake. You gave us all a real scare. What were you doing?"
"I didn't make it. I couldn't make it. I just wanted to fly, like you Rainbow, like everyone else." Scootaloo turned her head into the pillow, hiding her one good eye from the world. The bruise around her other one gave it an angry, purple color.
Rainbow screwed up her muzzle. She was never good at things like this. She loved coaching foals, but what Scootaloo had wasn't something she could fix with some well placed words or a practice session. "That's okay, Scootaloo."
"That's easy for you to say. You're not stuck on the ground with the rest of us."
"H-h-hey that's not what I meant. I just think you don't need to push yourself so hard."
"Isn't that what you do? Push yourself? You and the Wonderbolts? How many hours do you practice?"
"I'm just trying to say..."
Sweetiebelle butted in, "That you can't fly Scootaloo."
Applebloom nodded and added, "There's no shame in it. Y're still our best friend. Heck there's some ponies who can't even walk proper and they get along just fine."
Scootaloo buried herself further into the pillow, "Doesn't make me feel better." She hugged the pillow, buried her face in it, and let out a muffled scream, before jerking violently in the bed. Every bit of her trembled, and one of the tables crashed onto its side.
Nurse Redheart came trotting, surveyed the four of them and whinnied in dismay. "I think visiting hours are over for today, ladies."
Rainbow Dash gulped, looked from Nurse Redheart back to Scootaloo and rubbed a tear from the side of her cheek, "I'm sorry, Scoots." She reached out to put her hoof on one of Scootaloo's legs but the filly just retracted it immediately upon contact.
Nurse Redheart looked sorrowfully at the trio, "Come back tomorrow morning, I'm sure Scootaloo will be happy to see you then. She just needs some rest."
The three of them departed and Nurse Redheart took a seat next to the bed. She sat there in silence for a long time, saying nothing. Everything slowed around her. The medical devices hooked up to other patients beeped. Clocks ticked. A hushed cough echoed through the quiet halls. It was getting late out and the hospital darkened around her and the young filly, but still she kept her vigil.
For her part, Scootaloo stayed locked in her fetal position, painfully disjoint wing jutting off at a strange angle. She didn't say anything, she just cried into the pillow which absorbed her anguish without complaint or pity. When she finally stopped crying, she rocked for a while holding the pillow to her face, just letting the tears burn on her hot cheeks before finally fading, completely absorbed by the fluffy companion.
Slowly she turned over and let out a long, painful sigh. The kind that came from deep. She unloaded a lifetime of disappointment in a single breath. Then she noticed Nurse Redheart out of the corner of her good eye, and seized up all over again.
Nurse Redheart placed her hoof on Scootaloo's side, "I just wanted to make sure you were okay, all things considered. Is there anything I can get you?"
Scootaloo looked at her half in anger and half in shock. She felt violated, exposed. How much had the nurse seen? Everything, probably. "I just wanna be alone." she said, in the most miserable voice she could manage.
"I understand Scootaloo, but would you talk with me, for just a little bit?"
Scootaloo weighed the words in her mind, looking at Nurse Redheart then back down at the bed. She felt bad for making the nice nurse wait there so long in silence. "Yeah, okay."
Nurse Redheart smiles gently, squeezing Scootaloo's thigh, holding her hoof there without moving away or towards. "I looked at your x-rays Scootaloo and was doing some research. Your wing will be fine. It's a clean fracture, nothing a little R&R won't fix. We'll get you fitted with a cast and in a month you can take it off and you'll be right as rain."
Scootaloo could feel the bad news sandwich being built, "But?"
"But... your wings are severely underdeveloped for a filly your age. Your friends, and they are your friends, are right."
Scootaloo gripped her bedsheets with both hooves and began to cry hard, painful tears, mixed with short sobs.
"And I want you to know it's not fair. And it won't be okay. It's going to hurt a lot."
Scootaloo sucked a big glob of snot back in, and when Nurse Redheart handed her a tissue, she overfilled it. The nurse took it gingerly, with a barely disguised look of disgust, and placed it in a receptacle.
"That's what I was TELLING THEM!"
"I know. And you're right. It's hard for them to understand how much you're hurting right now."
"Don't they get it?! I'm supposed to be a flyer. Just like Rainbow Dash. Better than Rainbow Dash."
Nurse Redheart moved her hoof to Scootaloo's and squeezed it gently, "Those are amazing dreams Scootaloo. Great big ones."
"Now they'll never come true."
"They never were, Scootaloo."
Scootaloo looked up at Nurse Redheart with her one good eye, red from crying, "That doesn't make me feel much better."
"It's not supposed to, sometimes you just have to sit with the pain for a while before you can let it go. I know you're a big, strong pony and you can handle it." She leaned forward kissing Scootaloo on the head. "Promise me you won't do anything like that again, okay?"
Scootaloo bit her lower lip and nodded. She didn't say anything.
Nurse Redheart sat there for a while longer, holding Scootaloo's hand until the filly drifted off to sleep, and then she tucked Scootaloo in, and got back to making her rounds.
Scootaloo left the hospital later that night.
It wasn't hard sneaking out. Nobody was on the lookout for patients bailing on medical care. Her wing was busted, but after resting and letting the medication they gave her kick in she felt well enough to walk at a slow canter. By the time dawn was breaking she had made it up the side of the mountain overlooking Ponyville. At one point in the long past a dragon had slept there and threatened Ponyville with its smoky snoring, but he was gone and she was all alone.
She sat at the cliff's edge and looked over Ponyville. It was a nice place. The sun looked especially radiant as it refracted through Twilight Sparkle's palace home. She wiped tears away from her eyes. She was going to miss the place, but she wasn't going to miss the pain. The knowledge that she could never fulfill her purpose. That she could never be useful. Not even in the way that Derpy delivered mail, half to the wrong address, but still, somehow, always on time.
She stood and leaned forward while peering down the cliff edge. The bottom was a long, long way down. She had no doubt this would work. She took a tentative step forward, her front hoof just off the edge of the cliff, making the sharp rock crumble.
She raised another hoof, holding it in the air. She spread her wings. The broken one tinged her with pain, but that would be gone soon. She looked down at the only escape she could imagine, and everything was rushing to her; the friends she had, the people that would be left behind, the life she wouldn’t live, but the only thing she could imagine is an escape from the pain of disappointment.
As she leaned forward the wind pushed against her, making her whole body tremble and shake.
"SCOOTALOO".
Called a voice from high above. She blinked her one good eye, and looked up. The sun was blinding. Beautiful. Radiant. And out of the center of it, wreathed by its corona, flew a large, white pony with a mane glittering the colors of the rainbow.
Then Scootaloo fell.
She didn't mean to. She hadn't leaned forward, hadn't meant to put her weight into it, but she was balancing on a knife's edge, and a second gust of wind, from an unfortunate direction, pushed her just enough to send her off the edge.
It was the clubhouse all over again, but this time she had no first leap, and simply fell. Her eyes opened wide with terror as the ground rushed up to relieve her of her pain. Her uninjured wing flapped uselessly, batting against the rushing wind and taking her nowhere but down.
Then suddenly, she hit something. Not a tree branch, she was too far up for that. Maybe a rock out cropping? It knocked the wind out of her. She couldn't breathe, and it made her wing ache like when she first woke up in the hospital.
Then, to Scootaloo’s surprise, the ground was rushing away from her. As Celestia’s large, regal body lifted Scootaloo back up to the mountain’s edge, she buried her face into the alicorn’s soft fur and wept.
Celestia sat with her, flank to flank, Celestia’s much larger figure curving around Scootaloo’s relatively tiny one. She looked quizzically at the young mare.
“Young one, why would you do such a thing?”
Scootaloo, brushing the last of her tears away from her muzzle. “I just wanted it to be over. I didn’t want to have to be so useless anymore.”
Celestia’s brow furrowed in confusion, “Useless? Why would you say that?”
Scootaloo scoffed, “I can’t fly. I’ll NEVER be able to fly. You know what that feels like? To lose the only thing you wanted to do? To be?”
Celestia nodded, “I do, child. More than most.”
Scootaloo’s cheeks flushed, “You do?”
“Do you know how old I am, child?”
“Uh, no, not really.”
“I have lived for over a millennia. A thousand years. Do you know the one thing I have wanted in all that time?”
Scootaloo shook her head, eyes focused on Celestia.
The great mare looked off to the sun, “A family. I tried twice, but after I watched my second husband pass of old age, bearing no heirs, I could not continue. The heartbreak was too much.”
Scootaloo considered that for a long moment, “I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be, child. I wanted something I could not have. To be a mother. To be useful in that way, but now I am useful in another way. All we can do is find comfort in the opportunities afforded to us. I consider myself lucky, I raise the sun every day. It brings warmth and life to all of Equestria. I am, in some small way, the mother to everyone. It’s not exactly what I dreamed of, but it is what I have, and I’ve made my peace with that. And...”
Scootaloo leaned against the larger mare.
“I am happy.”
Scootaloo let out a short, guttural sob.
“I know someday you too will be happy, but you will not find happiness living in impossible dreams. You must rejoin the real world. You must embrace your truth, even if it is painful. The only way out is through.”
Celestia held Scootaloo close, and in that moment she knew everything was going to be okay. She didn’t know what her new dream was going to be, or how she would be useful, but she knew she would find it in time.
Scootaloo looked up at Celestia and smiled, really smiled, “Thank you.”
She nodded, touching her snout to the filly’s forehead, “Think nothing of it. I am just glad I could help.”
The dust trail kicked up by the galloping search party wrapped its way around the mountain’s contours, rapidly approaching.
“Who’s that?”
“Your many, many loved ones,” said Celestia with a smile.
The dust cloud came to a halt, and the mane six poured out. Followed by the other two Cutiemark Crusaders and finally Scootaloo’s parents. There was a cacophony of sound and confusion as all of them started speaking at once, but then Scootaloo’s mother galloped forward and grabbed her little foal, hugging her so tight. Scootaloo’s father was on her as well.
“Twilight teleported halfway across Equestria to get us, sweetie. I’m so glad she did. Thank Celestia we found you!” said Mane Allgood, before realizing Celestia was just a few steps away and smiled sheepishly at the solar princess.
“Celestia saved me!” said Scootaloo, hugging her parents back, “But I’m okay now.”
Celestia nodded, “Scootaloo here must have gotten more of a bonk on the head than she reckoned for. Found her up here a little dazed, and a little confused, but I think she’s doing okay now.”
Scootaloo looked back at Celestia, but the resplendent alicorn simply smiled, and Scootaloo did too, leaning back in to hug her parents.
“Can I go with you guys? You know, when you go back exploring?”
Snap Shutter gave his wife a confused look, “You want to go with us? To the outback? I didn’t think you were interested.”
Scootaloo shook her head, “I was just kinda distracted by other stuff, but I really wanna go. Maybe I won’t like it, but I’d like to at least give it a try. I hear beetles are pretty cool!”
Both parents smiled, hugged her, and exchanged a look between them, communicating in the silent mannerisms of a long married couple. Mane Allgood nodded knowingly to her husband and said, “Once your wing is back in shape we’ll get you fitted out with some proper adventuring kit.”
Scootaloo hugged her parents before mingling with the others; especially Rainbow Dash, Sweetie Belle, and Applebloom.
“Sorry I gave you guys such a scare. I was pretty upset, but I think things are going to be okay.”
Scootaloo set one hoof up on the railing of the Cutie Mark Crusader's clubhouse.
Sweetie Belle retorted, "She's a full grown mare, and you're not!"
Scootaloo added another to the railing.
"Doesn't matter, Flurry is a baby. I'm way older than her."
Then Scootaloo clambered upon until she was precariously balanced on the narrow railing.
Applebloom corrected, "She's an alicorn, that's different!"
"Yeah, well, not all of us have magic parents."
Scootaloo's cheeks grew a hot, cherry red. She scrunched up her nose and forced the feelings down where they came from. She had to focus on the task at hoof.
"I'm not watching," said Sweetie Belle, covering her eyes.
"I'll get the bandaids ready," said Applebloom, turning to fetch them from the clubhouse.
Scootaloo scowled at her unsupportive compatriots.
"You two BETTER stay here and witness my moment of triumph. If you don't, who will tell anypony I actually did it?"
"Okay, but just this once and never, ever again,” said Sweetie Belle.
"You got less sense than one of Flim and Flam's customers,” critiqued Applebloom.
"One, twoooo, THREE!" said Scootaloo as she launched herself from the treehouse railing, wings spread wide, flapping and eager. She hung in the air. She coasted forward on the momentum of her jump. The air pressed back against her beating wings. Up, she was going up!
Then she reached the apogee of her jump. Her wings kept flapping, but no lift came. Too small. Too weak. Too useless.
Her vision blurred as she tilted downwards towards the ground. She could hear one of her friends shriek and the other shout. Droplets of tears streaked along the sides of her face as the ground rushed up to meet her.
Then darkness.
But only for a second.
She awoke some time later in Ponyville Hospital. Her head pounded and her mouth was dry. More than anything she wanted water. She reached out with a hoof and leaned forward. She felt along the table connected to the hospital bed. Shifting forward she stretched her right wing and agony shot through her spine.
She dropped back into the bed.
She began to cry. It wasn't fair. She had tried so hard. Why could so many others do what she could not? Even the Earth ponies were built for more than she was. She wept softly to herself, blubbering, wallowing.
Then she felt the squeeze of a hoof on her own, soon joined by another.
"Hey, don't cry, we're here, okay? You're gonna be fine," comforted Applebloom.
"Lemme get you something to drink." Applebloom pressed a glass to Scootaloo's mouth and the young mare choked back one last ragged snot filled sob before sipping from the glass. One of her eyes was swollen shut, but the other was not, and she saw her two best friends hovering over her.
"T-T-Thanks" she sputtered, taking another long draw and emptying the glass. Glug, glug, glug.
Rainbow Dash poked her head past the privacy curtain around the trio. "Hey, sport, you're awake. You gave us all a real scare. What were you doing?"
"I didn't make it. I couldn't make it. I just wanted to fly, like you Rainbow, like everyone else." Scootaloo turned her head into the pillow, hiding her one good eye from the world. The bruise around her other one gave it an angry, purple color.
Rainbow screwed up her muzzle. She was never good at things like this. She loved coaching foals, but what Scootaloo had wasn't something she could fix with some well placed words or a practice session. "That's okay, Scootaloo."
"That's easy for you to say. You're not stuck on the ground with the rest of us."
"H-h-hey that's not what I meant. I just think you don't need to push yourself so hard."
"Isn't that what you do? Push yourself? You and the Wonderbolts? How many hours do you practice?"
"I'm just trying to say..."
Sweetiebelle butted in, "That you can't fly Scootaloo."
Applebloom nodded and added, "There's no shame in it. Y're still our best friend. Heck there's some ponies who can't even walk proper and they get along just fine."
Scootaloo buried herself further into the pillow, "Doesn't make me feel better." She hugged the pillow, buried her face in it, and let out a muffled scream, before jerking violently in the bed. Every bit of her trembled, and one of the tables crashed onto its side.
Nurse Redheart came trotting, surveyed the four of them and whinnied in dismay. "I think visiting hours are over for today, ladies."
Rainbow Dash gulped, looked from Nurse Redheart back to Scootaloo and rubbed a tear from the side of her cheek, "I'm sorry, Scoots." She reached out to put her hoof on one of Scootaloo's legs but the filly just retracted it immediately upon contact.
Nurse Redheart looked sorrowfully at the trio, "Come back tomorrow morning, I'm sure Scootaloo will be happy to see you then. She just needs some rest."
The three of them departed and Nurse Redheart took a seat next to the bed. She sat there in silence for a long time, saying nothing. Everything slowed around her. The medical devices hooked up to other patients beeped. Clocks ticked. A hushed cough echoed through the quiet halls. It was getting late out and the hospital darkened around her and the young filly, but still she kept her vigil.
For her part, Scootaloo stayed locked in her fetal position, painfully disjoint wing jutting off at a strange angle. She didn't say anything, she just cried into the pillow which absorbed her anguish without complaint or pity. When she finally stopped crying, she rocked for a while holding the pillow to her face, just letting the tears burn on her hot cheeks before finally fading, completely absorbed by the fluffy companion.
Slowly she turned over and let out a long, painful sigh. The kind that came from deep. She unloaded a lifetime of disappointment in a single breath. Then she noticed Nurse Redheart out of the corner of her good eye, and seized up all over again.
Nurse Redheart placed her hoof on Scootaloo's side, "I just wanted to make sure you were okay, all things considered. Is there anything I can get you?"
Scootaloo looked at her half in anger and half in shock. She felt violated, exposed. How much had the nurse seen? Everything, probably. "I just wanna be alone." she said, in the most miserable voice she could manage.
"I understand Scootaloo, but would you talk with me, for just a little bit?"
Scootaloo weighed the words in her mind, looking at Nurse Redheart then back down at the bed. She felt bad for making the nice nurse wait there so long in silence. "Yeah, okay."
Nurse Redheart smiles gently, squeezing Scootaloo's thigh, holding her hoof there without moving away or towards. "I looked at your x-rays Scootaloo and was doing some research. Your wing will be fine. It's a clean fracture, nothing a little R&R won't fix. We'll get you fitted with a cast and in a month you can take it off and you'll be right as rain."
Scootaloo could feel the bad news sandwich being built, "But?"
"But... your wings are severely underdeveloped for a filly your age. Your friends, and they are your friends, are right."
Scootaloo gripped her bedsheets with both hooves and began to cry hard, painful tears, mixed with short sobs.
"And I want you to know it's not fair. And it won't be okay. It's going to hurt a lot."
Scootaloo sucked a big glob of snot back in, and when Nurse Redheart handed her a tissue, she overfilled it. The nurse took it gingerly, with a barely disguised look of disgust, and placed it in a receptacle.
"That's what I was TELLING THEM!"
"I know. And you're right. It's hard for them to understand how much you're hurting right now."
"Don't they get it?! I'm supposed to be a flyer. Just like Rainbow Dash. Better than Rainbow Dash."
Nurse Redheart moved her hoof to Scootaloo's and squeezed it gently, "Those are amazing dreams Scootaloo. Great big ones."
"Now they'll never come true."
"They never were, Scootaloo."
Scootaloo looked up at Nurse Redheart with her one good eye, red from crying, "That doesn't make me feel much better."
"It's not supposed to, sometimes you just have to sit with the pain for a while before you can let it go. I know you're a big, strong pony and you can handle it." She leaned forward kissing Scootaloo on the head. "Promise me you won't do anything like that again, okay?"
Scootaloo bit her lower lip and nodded. She didn't say anything.
Nurse Redheart sat there for a while longer, holding Scootaloo's hand until the filly drifted off to sleep, and then she tucked Scootaloo in, and got back to making her rounds.
Scootaloo left the hospital later that night.
It wasn't hard sneaking out. Nobody was on the lookout for patients bailing on medical care. Her wing was busted, but after resting and letting the medication they gave her kick in she felt well enough to walk at a slow canter. By the time dawn was breaking she had made it up the side of the mountain overlooking Ponyville. At one point in the long past a dragon had slept there and threatened Ponyville with its smoky snoring, but he was gone and she was all alone.
She sat at the cliff's edge and looked over Ponyville. It was a nice place. The sun looked especially radiant as it refracted through Twilight Sparkle's palace home. She wiped tears away from her eyes. She was going to miss the place, but she wasn't going to miss the pain. The knowledge that she could never fulfill her purpose. That she could never be useful. Not even in the way that Derpy delivered mail, half to the wrong address, but still, somehow, always on time.
She stood and leaned forward while peering down the cliff edge. The bottom was a long, long way down. She had no doubt this would work. She took a tentative step forward, her front hoof just off the edge of the cliff, making the sharp rock crumble.
She raised another hoof, holding it in the air. She spread her wings. The broken one tinged her with pain, but that would be gone soon. She looked down at the only escape she could imagine, and everything was rushing to her; the friends she had, the people that would be left behind, the life she wouldn’t live, but the only thing she could imagine is an escape from the pain of disappointment.
As she leaned forward the wind pushed against her, making her whole body tremble and shake.
"SCOOTALOO".
Called a voice from high above. She blinked her one good eye, and looked up. The sun was blinding. Beautiful. Radiant. And out of the center of it, wreathed by its corona, flew a large, white pony with a mane glittering the colors of the rainbow.
Then Scootaloo fell.
She didn't mean to. She hadn't leaned forward, hadn't meant to put her weight into it, but she was balancing on a knife's edge, and a second gust of wind, from an unfortunate direction, pushed her just enough to send her off the edge.
It was the clubhouse all over again, but this time she had no first leap, and simply fell. Her eyes opened wide with terror as the ground rushed up to relieve her of her pain. Her uninjured wing flapped uselessly, batting against the rushing wind and taking her nowhere but down.
Then suddenly, she hit something. Not a tree branch, she was too far up for that. Maybe a rock out cropping? It knocked the wind out of her. She couldn't breathe, and it made her wing ache like when she first woke up in the hospital.
Then, to Scootaloo’s surprise, the ground was rushing away from her. As Celestia’s large, regal body lifted Scootaloo back up to the mountain’s edge, she buried her face into the alicorn’s soft fur and wept.
Celestia sat with her, flank to flank, Celestia’s much larger figure curving around Scootaloo’s relatively tiny one. She looked quizzically at the young mare.
“Young one, why would you do such a thing?”
Scootaloo, brushing the last of her tears away from her muzzle. “I just wanted it to be over. I didn’t want to have to be so useless anymore.”
Celestia’s brow furrowed in confusion, “Useless? Why would you say that?”
Scootaloo scoffed, “I can’t fly. I’ll NEVER be able to fly. You know what that feels like? To lose the only thing you wanted to do? To be?”
Celestia nodded, “I do, child. More than most.”
Scootaloo’s cheeks flushed, “You do?”
“Do you know how old I am, child?”
“Uh, no, not really.”
“I have lived for over a millennia. A thousand years. Do you know the one thing I have wanted in all that time?”
Scootaloo shook her head, eyes focused on Celestia.
The great mare looked off to the sun, “A family. I tried twice, but after I watched my second husband pass of old age, bearing no heirs, I could not continue. The heartbreak was too much.”
Scootaloo considered that for a long moment, “I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be, child. I wanted something I could not have. To be a mother. To be useful in that way, but now I am useful in another way. All we can do is find comfort in the opportunities afforded to us. I consider myself lucky, I raise the sun every day. It brings warmth and life to all of Equestria. I am, in some small way, the mother to everyone. It’s not exactly what I dreamed of, but it is what I have, and I’ve made my peace with that. And...”
Scootaloo leaned against the larger mare.
“I am happy.”
Scootaloo let out a short, guttural sob.
“I know someday you too will be happy, but you will not find happiness living in impossible dreams. You must rejoin the real world. You must embrace your truth, even if it is painful. The only way out is through.”
Celestia held Scootaloo close, and in that moment she knew everything was going to be okay. She didn’t know what her new dream was going to be, or how she would be useful, but she knew she would find it in time.
Scootaloo looked up at Celestia and smiled, really smiled, “Thank you.”
She nodded, touching her snout to the filly’s forehead, “Think nothing of it. I am just glad I could help.”
The dust trail kicked up by the galloping search party wrapped its way around the mountain’s contours, rapidly approaching.
“Who’s that?”
“Your many, many loved ones,” said Celestia with a smile.
The dust cloud came to a halt, and the mane six poured out. Followed by the other two Cutiemark Crusaders and finally Scootaloo’s parents. There was a cacophony of sound and confusion as all of them started speaking at once, but then Scootaloo’s mother galloped forward and grabbed her little foal, hugging her so tight. Scootaloo’s father was on her as well.
“Twilight teleported halfway across Equestria to get us, sweetie. I’m so glad she did. Thank Celestia we found you!” said Mane Allgood, before realizing Celestia was just a few steps away and smiled sheepishly at the solar princess.
“Celestia saved me!” said Scootaloo, hugging her parents back, “But I’m okay now.”
Celestia nodded, “Scootaloo here must have gotten more of a bonk on the head than she reckoned for. Found her up here a little dazed, and a little confused, but I think she’s doing okay now.”
Scootaloo looked back at Celestia, but the resplendent alicorn simply smiled, and Scootaloo did too, leaning back in to hug her parents.
“Can I go with you guys? You know, when you go back exploring?”
Snap Shutter gave his wife a confused look, “You want to go with us? To the outback? I didn’t think you were interested.”
Scootaloo shook her head, “I was just kinda distracted by other stuff, but I really wanna go. Maybe I won’t like it, but I’d like to at least give it a try. I hear beetles are pretty cool!”
Both parents smiled, hugged her, and exchanged a look between them, communicating in the silent mannerisms of a long married couple. Mane Allgood nodded knowingly to her husband and said, “Once your wing is back in shape we’ll get you fitted out with some proper adventuring kit.”
Scootaloo hugged her parents before mingling with the others; especially Rainbow Dash, Sweetie Belle, and Applebloom.
“Sorry I gave you guys such a scare. I was pretty upset, but I think things are going to be okay.”
I like what you're going for, author! This story has a lot of promise, I appreciate the topic of dealing with disability and loss, and your writing is generally very good. There are some small mistakes that are more common in authors who haven't had a lot of feedback before, but your writing is still very strong so let's talk about the more important thing first: the story.
Scootaloo's disability is something most fans really regret the show not taking on directly, so it's a great topic for fixfics and dramas, and it's one that speaks to me personally. I wasn't expecting this to head into such dark terrain, but the transition downhill (so to speak) made enough sense that it wasn't jarring for me.
The topic of suicide is one with a very high degree of difficulty to pull off realistically, especially when constrained by time and space limitations (and, in full disclosure, one in which I have personal lived experience). This was a challenging narrative to approach, and most of what you did here was good.
My main critique concerns realism and resolution. Scootaloo's change of heart appearing to come quickly is actually normal in this situation, because her subconscious is desperate to convince her everything is okay. But she's still in extreme danger after an attempt, even if she didn't quite decide to take that last step. Princess Celestia would know this and immediately inform her guardians of the attempt, because if untreated it is very likely to recur at some point over the next year. This Scootaloo is in dire need of an intervention. That might seem like a minor thing to focus on, but not addressing the danger she's in makes the ending feel unresolved and unrealistic for me.
I do have a theory that makes the ending make a lot more sense, but I don't think it's what you intended because there isn't enough indication in the story to provide a hint to the reader. I'll come back to it.
As it currently stands, the ending didn't feel entirely realistic to me for a couple of reasons. First, Celestia's appearance felt too much like a convenient deus ex machina.
There's a simple solution to both of the above issues: have this take place in a dream, and use Princess Luna instead. Princess Celestia is an effective teacher (just like her VA's other major character), but her ability to understand the psyche and comfort ponies pales in comparison to her sister, plus Luna can commiserate with anyone.
This is precisely the kind of story Luna was designed for. Then the dream attempt doesn't necessarily indicate suicidality in real life. You might want to review s4e19 ("For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils") or s3e6 ("Sleepless in Ponyville") to see a couple of great examples of her at work. Even though the latter is literally a Luna+Scootaloo episode, I think the former is a better example with more depth.
If you do want her to be suicidal, Dash is a better choice for her rescue. The moment Dash discovered Scoot was missing she would take off to find her, she has a close relationship with her already, and she's uniquely fast enough to get there in time.
The other part of the ending that felt a bit rushed was the denouement. How did all the ponies immediately know where Scootaloo was and manage to run there, and why would Twilight grab Scoot's parents and round up lots of other ponies instead of organizing a smaller search party? It's nighttime (another reason Luna makes more sense here) (EDIT: I may have misread that) but even in daylight they probably wouldn't be able to see her far in the distance.
Honestly, Scoot's parents are such trash in the show that it seems more likely to me that Twilight would just grab her true guardians (her aunts). An entire episode was dedicated to Scootaloo and the rest of Ponyville literally fighting her parents over custody so she wouldn't have to leave her friends, so this definitely feels out of character to me.
The one theory that makes all of this make sense is if she died on the mountain, and the ending is not 'real'. That would be significantly darker than even I like to write, so I would question the intended message of the story. This is pretty random, but have you seen True Detective season 2? It has the problem of its apparent message being 'everything is awful' with no payoff for the audience's investment in the characters, so the ending of that season fell flat for me. If this was your intent, it needs foreshadowing, but also a purpose, a message, or some takeaway for the reader to feel like they learned something or experienced loss in a way that resonated with a positive takeaway.
Overall, I enjoyed the story. It just needs a little more realism at the end, or else a good reason why it isn't realistic.
Onto the writing notes! Your writing is good, but there are still a couple areas for improvement.
I was worried at first about microparagraphing which appeared in the early part of the story, but this improved so I don't think it's a consistent problem you have. Just be aware that separating sentences for emphasis doesn't work as well as it feels like when you're writing. Anything that draws the reader's attention to something unusual in the writing itself makes it a little harder on the reader's immersion.
You use a lot of saidisms. This is difficult to learn to avoid. Just like the overuse of emdashes and ellipses in the story "FOBO", saidisms are another convenient way to quickly tell the reader something complicated, but they're usually bad in practice. In almost all cases you should avoid using words other than 'asked/asks/ask' or 'said/says/say' for dialogue. If you've written the action around the dialogue properly, the reader will understand when a character is replying, asserting, or retorting. It feels weird and boring to always use 'said' (it's a tough habit to break!) but it's much less invasive for the reader. As much as I love using pulp-fictiony gimmicks like: "Saidisms are great," lied Trixie; I still try not to succumb to the temptation. They're usually too telly.
I didn't notice any Lavender Unicorn Syndrome on my first pass through, which is good. I'm a little ill at the moment, but I'll look again later to be sure.
Despite the dark topic, some of the scenes are just a little bit emotionally overwrought. I think one of the best things you can personally do to improve your writing is to try writing subtle details in the action portions of your dialogue. This is a good idea for any artist to practice! Your audience will appreciate being able to suss out the true intentions and feelings of characters when they aren't so vulgar (by this I mean direct/obvious). I should stress that this isn't a big problem here, because the topic deserves some obvious and strong emotion, but I think it can shine better if the expression is dialed back just a little. This is particularly true when the topic is suicide, because flattened affect prior to an attempt is common, though not universal.
Really minor stuff:
The reference to Season 1 "Dragonshy" was accurate, but felt a little forced. It would make sense if Scoot were thinking about how a dragon once used to roost here, and also if that thought was related to what she was doing. Although I'm not sure how she would know about the event, so that might also need a little more to make it work.
You can't stutter or stammer an 'h' sound, and stuttering and stammering are both pretty rare. I overuse them myself, as well as blushing (or showing any color), and I need to watch that better in my writing. Subtle cues are better: a tense jaw for anger, a quick tap from a hoof for nerves, a lick of the lips for concentration. This requires a little less hoof-holding for the reader and a little more effort to pull off, but it's worth it.
Also this was probably an oversight but, "They never were, Scootaloo," should be either, "They never were going to, Scootaloo," or, "They never would have, Scootaloo."
I enjoyed the ride, and would love to see you stick the landing on this. It's a sure thing for top three.
Scootaloo's disability is something most fans really regret the show not taking on directly, so it's a great topic for fixfics and dramas, and it's one that speaks to me personally. I wasn't expecting this to head into such dark terrain, but the transition downhill (so to speak) made enough sense that it wasn't jarring for me.
The topic of suicide is one with a very high degree of difficulty to pull off realistically, especially when constrained by time and space limitations (and, in full disclosure, one in which I have personal lived experience). This was a challenging narrative to approach, and most of what you did here was good.
My main critique concerns realism and resolution. Scootaloo's change of heart appearing to come quickly is actually normal in this situation, because her subconscious is desperate to convince her everything is okay. But she's still in extreme danger after an attempt, even if she didn't quite decide to take that last step. Princess Celestia would know this and immediately inform her guardians of the attempt, because if untreated it is very likely to recur at some point over the next year. This Scootaloo is in dire need of an intervention. That might seem like a minor thing to focus on, but not addressing the danger she's in makes the ending feel unresolved and unrealistic for me.
I do have a theory that makes the ending make a lot more sense, but I don't think it's what you intended because there isn't enough indication in the story to provide a hint to the reader. I'll come back to it.
As it currently stands, the ending didn't feel entirely realistic to me for a couple of reasons. First, Celestia's appearance felt too much like a convenient deus ex machina.
There's a simple solution to both of the above issues: have this take place in a dream, and use Princess Luna instead. Princess Celestia is an effective teacher (just like her VA's other major character), but her ability to understand the psyche and comfort ponies pales in comparison to her sister, plus Luna can commiserate with anyone.
This is precisely the kind of story Luna was designed for. Then the dream attempt doesn't necessarily indicate suicidality in real life. You might want to review s4e19 ("For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils") or s3e6 ("Sleepless in Ponyville") to see a couple of great examples of her at work. Even though the latter is literally a Luna+Scootaloo episode, I think the former is a better example with more depth.
If you do want her to be suicidal, Dash is a better choice for her rescue. The moment Dash discovered Scoot was missing she would take off to find her, she has a close relationship with her already, and she's uniquely fast enough to get there in time.
The other part of the ending that felt a bit rushed was the denouement. How did all the ponies immediately know where Scootaloo was and manage to run there, and why would Twilight grab Scoot's parents and round up lots of other ponies instead of organizing a smaller search party? It's nighttime (another reason Luna makes more sense here) (EDIT: I may have misread that) but even in daylight they probably wouldn't be able to see her far in the distance.
Honestly, Scoot's parents are such trash in the show that it seems more likely to me that Twilight would just grab her true guardians (her aunts). An entire episode was dedicated to Scootaloo and the rest of Ponyville literally fighting her parents over custody so she wouldn't have to leave her friends, so this definitely feels out of character to me.
The one theory that makes all of this make sense is if she died on the mountain, and the ending is not 'real'. That would be significantly darker than even I like to write, so I would question the intended message of the story. This is pretty random, but have you seen True Detective season 2? It has the problem of its apparent message being 'everything is awful' with no payoff for the audience's investment in the characters, so the ending of that season fell flat for me. If this was your intent, it needs foreshadowing, but also a purpose, a message, or some takeaway for the reader to feel like they learned something or experienced loss in a way that resonated with a positive takeaway.
Overall, I enjoyed the story. It just needs a little more realism at the end, or else a good reason why it isn't realistic.
Onto the writing notes! Your writing is good, but there are still a couple areas for improvement.
I was worried at first about microparagraphing which appeared in the early part of the story, but this improved so I don't think it's a consistent problem you have. Just be aware that separating sentences for emphasis doesn't work as well as it feels like when you're writing. Anything that draws the reader's attention to something unusual in the writing itself makes it a little harder on the reader's immersion.
You use a lot of saidisms. This is difficult to learn to avoid. Just like the overuse of emdashes and ellipses in the story "FOBO", saidisms are another convenient way to quickly tell the reader something complicated, but they're usually bad in practice. In almost all cases you should avoid using words other than 'asked/asks/ask' or 'said/says/say' for dialogue. If you've written the action around the dialogue properly, the reader will understand when a character is replying, asserting, or retorting. It feels weird and boring to always use 'said' (it's a tough habit to break!) but it's much less invasive for the reader. As much as I love using pulp-fictiony gimmicks like: "Saidisms are great," lied Trixie; I still try not to succumb to the temptation. They're usually too telly.
I didn't notice any Lavender Unicorn Syndrome on my first pass through, which is good. I'm a little ill at the moment, but I'll look again later to be sure.
Despite the dark topic, some of the scenes are just a little bit emotionally overwrought. I think one of the best things you can personally do to improve your writing is to try writing subtle details in the action portions of your dialogue. This is a good idea for any artist to practice! Your audience will appreciate being able to suss out the true intentions and feelings of characters when they aren't so vulgar (by this I mean direct/obvious). I should stress that this isn't a big problem here, because the topic deserves some obvious and strong emotion, but I think it can shine better if the expression is dialed back just a little. This is particularly true when the topic is suicide, because flattened affect prior to an attempt is common, though not universal.
Really minor stuff:
The reference to Season 1 "Dragonshy" was accurate, but felt a little forced. It would make sense if Scoot were thinking about how a dragon once used to roost here, and also if that thought was related to what she was doing. Although I'm not sure how she would know about the event, so that might also need a little more to make it work.
You can't stutter or stammer an 'h' sound, and stuttering and stammering are both pretty rare. I overuse them myself, as well as blushing (or showing any color), and I need to watch that better in my writing. Subtle cues are better: a tense jaw for anger, a quick tap from a hoof for nerves, a lick of the lips for concentration. This requires a little less hoof-holding for the reader and a little more effort to pull off, but it's worth it.
Also this was probably an oversight but, "They never were, Scootaloo," should be either, "They never were going to, Scootaloo," or, "They never would have, Scootaloo."
I enjoyed the ride, and would love to see you stick the landing on this. It's a sure thing for top three.