Spellbound Fireflies (15 page)

Scootaloo leapt to her hooves, legs planted wide.  She set her jaw, narrowed her eyes, and thundered, “No!”

Mrs. Taker blinked.  “Excuse me?”

“I said no.  You’re not taking Rainbow Dash and Twilight away from me.”

An uncomfortable quiet settled over the room as Mrs. Taker stared disbelieving at her foster foal.  Eventually she found her voice.  “This isn’t up for debate.”

“I’m not debating.”  She pawed the floor in challenge, ears down and tail flicking.  “I’m not gonna lose out on flying and school just ‘cause they’re
gay
.”

Mrs. Taker expelled a forceful breath of air, her eyes re-hardening.  “I know you’re disappointed, but it’s too much of a risk.”

Scootaloo’s glare narrowed.  “Rainbow Dash has been lookin’ out for me for
two years
, Mrs. Taker, ever since she
saved my life.
  She’d
never, ever
hurt me.  She…she
cares
about me.”  A swelling tide of anger and pain started to fill her chest.

“Well, Twilight—”

“Twilight Sparkle figured out I had dyslexia in
ten minutes!
” she screamed, the hairs on her neck standing on end.  Mrs. Taker fell back into the couch, her eyes wide and jaw slack.  “She’s the first pony who ever
looked
!”  Wetness sprung to her eyes, her throat feeling thick and hot.  “I-I can do math again ‘c-cause of her.  I un-understand it again.  I can read.  I-it makes sense; school
makes sense
again!”  She swallowed thickly, rubbing furiously at her eyes.  Mrs. Taker leaned forward, but Scootaloo stomped her hoof back against the floor with an echoing clatter.  “And-and, you
accuse
her of—How dare you?  How
dare
you?!”

Scootaloo’s heavy panting was all that broke the silence for several moments while Mrs. Taker regarded her charge with total shock.  “…You have to understand, it’s my
job
to make sure you’re safe, and letting you around ponies like
them
is too much of a risk.”

Resisting the urge to spit on the floor, Scootaloo shook her head forcefully and began pacing in agitation in front of the couch.  “Yeah.  Your
job
.  That’s all I’ve ever been to you.  A
job
.”

“Scootaloo…”

She whipped around, facing Mrs. Taker again, shouting, “Don’t pretend like you care about me!  Like you ever cared about me!  Like I was anything more than a mouth to feed to you or Mr. Taker!”  Her voice lowered and her eyes shrunk to darkened slits.  “I’m just a little sprout to keep alive.”

Mrs. Taker gaped wordlessly, staring at Scootaloo, really
seeing
her for possibly the first time.  She tentatively extended a hoof towards the filly, but was rebuked as Scootaloo resumed her pacing.

“I’m sure the
town
would love to hear about this, huh?  That’d help you with your
job
, if everypony knew you kept me from learning to fly from a Wonderbolt Academy Team Lead pony, or from being tutored by Princess Celestia’s student.  Rainbow Dash’s coaching got me in the air a little today, did you know that?  And I had a meeting with Ms. Cheerilee and Twilight; I got a B plus on my last math test!  Yeah, the town’d
love
to hear about how you made me stop seeing a tutor that was
getting results
.  I’m sure that’d make you look
awesome
.”

Mrs. Taker slowly crumpled in on herself against the back of the couch.  Her dumbstruck expression grew distant and she stared out the window.  After several minutes of Scootaloo’s frenetic pacing, she sighed out, flat and toneless, “Do whatever you want, Scootaloo.”

Scootaloo grunted through her snout and stomped out the door, slamming it behind her.  Mrs. Taker listened to the buzz of her scooter quickly fade away.  She slowly sunk to her side on the couch and curled up in a ball, staring out the window.  When Mr. Taker arrived home, she numbly went to bed without a word.

Scootaloo tore through town on her scooter, pumping her wings to their limits, weaving dangerously along the uneven road.  She could barely see through the pulsing in her temples that sent tremors through her vision in waves of red.  Her lungs burned from the exertion of her adrenaline-fueled race combined with the fast and shallow breaths of near hyperventilation.

She skidded to a crashing halt in front of the library, letting her scooter tumble away from her in a heap.  She nearly yanked the door off its hinges as she barreled inside.

At the bang of the door, Rainbow Dash and Twilight jumped in shock, the pegasus leaping out of Twilight’s embrace.  Scootaloo threw herself into Rainbow’s chest and hugged tight just as the mare turned to face her.

“Whoa, hey,” Rainbow stammered, her raspy voice raw and low.  Frayed at the edges past her breaking point, Scootaloo began crying into Rainbow’s coat.  Rainbow sniffled loudly to clear her snout and tentatively returned the embrace.  “Scoots, I…I didn’t expect to see ya again…today.”

“Sh-she was gonna keep me from seeing you
ever
again,” the filly choked out around her exhausted sobs, “She s-said you were dangerous.”  Scootaloo hugged the mare tighter.  “I…I yelled at her.  
So much.
  I said all these awful things and…”

“Shh, it’s okay, Scoots, it’s okay…”  Rainbow stroked Scootaloo’s spiky mane with a hoof.  “Just tell me what happened.”

The filly talked fitfully, the helpless shaking of her frame joining her tears.  “Sh-she said I couldn’t see either of you again, ‘cause…”  She scrunched her eyes tight forcefully, acid rising in the back of her throat.  “Since you’re gay, she said you might hurt me.  I…I yelled at her.  I got so angry that she’d say such awful things about you…”  Frowning sadly, Rainbow glanced sideways at Twilight and beckoned her with a twitch of an ear.  The unicorn, bewildered and out of sorts, haltingly stepped closer.  Rainbow extended a wing and dragged Twilight into the embrace.  Twilight awkwardly hugged them both.

Scootaloo’s panic slowly drained, held by the two mares.  She took a long, deep, steadying breath.  “…I said she didn’t care about me an’ only thought of me as a job.  I said I’d tell everypony she made me stop seein’ you, even though you’re both helpin’ me with school and flying.  I couldn’t let her take you away from me.”  Her voice cracked on the last word and she tightly shut her eyes again.  “Sh-she gave up after I was done, said I could do whatever I wanted, so I came here.  I dunno what to do now…”

Rainbow sighed slowly through her snout, her eyes drifting shut.  “S’alright, Scoots.  We can deal with that later.”  She hugged the little filly closer.  “…I was afraid somethin’ like this was gonna happen when I saw her come in.”

Twilight leaned over in the hug and kissed Rainbow on the brow.  “We’ll figure this out, Rainbow.  And Scootaloo, whatever happens, our door is
always
open to you, got it?”

Scootaloo nodded weakly into Rainbow’s chest.  “I’m scared.”

Rainbow’s other wing unfurled and joined her hooves in holding Scootaloo.  “S’okay, Scoots.  I’m here.  You don’t haveta be scared.”

Sniffling miserably, Scootaloo nodded again.  “When she told me I couldn’t see you guys anymore, I got really scared.  I…I tried to use that colt, like you told me, to be able to talk to her even though it was really hard.  It…it didn’t work.  I almost gave up.  But then…I thought about you, Rainbow Dash.  I thought about you and I wasn’t scared anymore.”

Rainbow Dash lost words for a moment, looking down at the top of Scootaloo’s head.  After a long pause, she came to a decision and set her jaw.  She turned to her marefriend.  “Hey, Twi’?  I bet Scoots hasn’t eaten anything, mind findin’ somethin’ she can have?”  She raised her eyebrows and flicked her eyes meaningfully at Scootaloo and back to Twilight.

Twilight nodded in understanding and extricated herself from the group hug, cantering to the kitchen to give the pair privacy.  Rainbow let up on her hug and carefully guided Scootaloo away from her chest by the filly’s shoulders.  She looked Scootaloo in the eyes for a moment.  “…You’re a great kid, Scoots.  You really are.  It means a lot that I could help ya out like that, even if I wasn’t there.”  She took a deep breath, as Scootaloo wiped at her eyes.  She smiled sadly.  “I wanna tell ya something.  Something important about me.  I haven’t really been honest about that colt with ya, but I think it’d be good for you to hear now.  See…he wasn’t just some random pony I read about in an article once.  I knew him.”

Scootaloo finished drying her eyes, her ears perking up in interest.  “You knew him?  Who was he?”

“…He was my dad.”

Gaze wide and jaw hanging open, Scootaloo gaped at Rainbow.  “…Y-your dad had his wings tied up ‘til he was twelve?”

Rainbow nodded solemnly, settling back on her haunches.  “His parents were both earth ponies, but somewhere back in one of the families somepony was a pegasus.  And, y’see, his dad always thought he wasn’t
really
his dad an’ his mom had…y’know.”  Scootaloo grimaced and nodded.  “And his mom came from a family that didn’t like pegasi, so they fought a lot and took it out on him.”  She sighed, her eyes growing pained and reminiscent.  “My dad was one of the strongest ponies I’ve ever met.  ‘Cause of what he went through, he fought for everything and pushed himself harder and harder, just to prove somethin’ to them.  He was a good stallion.  The best I’ve ever met.”

Scootaloo looked to the floor, hazy memories of her own parents, rendered indistinct with time, floated ephemerally through her mind.  “…I can see why you’d pick him for somepony to think about during tough stuff.”

Rainbow smiled.  “You remind me of what he was like.”

Raising an eyebrow, Scootaloo met Rainbow’s gaze.  “Was?”  Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and dropped her head.  Scootaloo’s throat bobbed soundlessly in the stillness.

“…After the colthood he had, my dad had a lot of health problems.  He worked so hard, but…”  She sighed heavily, sinking lower.  “I was a little younger’n you are now when he died.”

“…Oh,” she responded lamely, her ears drooping.  “A-and your mom?”

Rainbow shrugged her shoulders.  “I dunno what happened to her.  Whenever I asked about her, all my dad said was that she loved me very much.  I was so young when he died I never got to hear the full story.”

“That’s awful…”

Rainbow smiled faintly, lifting her head to look at the filly.  She ran a hoof through Scootaloo’s mane.  “After that I was in foster care for a long time.  I didn’t have any other family, and…well, you know how nopony really ever adopts foals after a certain age.”  Scootaloo sighed and nodded in resignation.  Rainbow’s smile widened a little.  “You remind me of
me
, too.  S’why I’ve tried ta look out for ya these last couple years.  You’re a great kid, Scoots.”

Twilight tentatively cantered back into the main room, floating three plates of sandwiches in a glow of magic.  She raised an eyebrow at her marefriend.   Rainbow nodded and she swiftly made her way closer.  Scootaloo smiled and took her sandwich in both hooves, tearing into it.

Twilight giggled.  “She eats just like you, Rainbow.”  Rainbow shot her a mock glare over her half-devoured sandwich.

Wiping her face and sitting back to pat her belly, Scootaloo glanced out the window at the almost pitch sky.  “…It’s getting late.  I…I dunno what to do.”

Rainbow finished off her dinner and belched loudly.  Picking at her teeth with a hoof, she said, “I’ll walk ya home.  If there’s trouble, we got a spare room here for the night and we’ll get this figured out tomorrow.  Sound good?”

Scootaloo grimaced, but nodded.  Rainbow gave Twilight a quick peck on the cheek and headed out the door.  Scootaloo grabbed her fallen scooter and walked it alongside Rainbow as they headed back through town.  “Thanks, Rainbow.  Thank you for tellin’ me that.  And thanks for bein’ there for me.”

Rainbow smiled warmly.  “’Course, Scoots.  I’ll never leave ya hangin’.”

“I know,” she mumbled to herself, “You never have.”

Several paces past Sugarcube Corner, Rainbow frowned thoughtfully at Scootaloo.  “We, uh, didn’t really talk about it inside, but…with all the other stuff you’re goin’ through I bet it hurt to hear all those things about me an’ Twi’.  Are you...I guess okay is the wrong word.”  She shrugged helplessly.

Scootaloo expelled a forceful breath through her snout.  “Not really.  I mean…I knew that not everypony is okay with it already.  I hear it at school sometimes from other foals.”  A bitter smirk crossed her face.  “Seems like as soon as you told me about gay ponies I hear it everywhere now.”  She shook her head.  “I’ll be okay, though.  I’m still figurin’ all this out.”

Rainbow nodded, letting the conversation lapse as they made their way past Town Hall.

As Scootaloo led her scooter beside Rainbow in silence, a notion struck her.  Before, whenever she was around her idol, she needed to fill any gaps in their conversation, whether it was with words or actions.  She felt exposed and self-conscious in the quiet.  Walking slowly next to the mare down the dark and empty Ponyville streets, full of stress and quickly-eaten sandwich, she didn’t feel suffocated by the silence.  She felt at ease and comfortable.

She glanced at the duck-shaped patch of missing shingles as they cantered to the door of her house.  Scootaloo swallowed hard and tried the handle, swinging the door open into the dark and still living room.  She turned back to Rainbow.  “Guess it’s okay.”

“You need anything,
anything
, Scoots, you come find me or Twilight, ‘kay?  I’ll see ya Thursday for more training.”

A smile cracked her muzzle.  “You got it, Rainbow.  And tell Twilight I’ll see her tomorrow.  With Sweetie Belle.”  Scootaloo’s voice uncontrollably raised half an octave on her crush’s name.  Rainbow carefully controlled her features to hide her surprise and sudden understanding.  She nodded once and cantered back out of the yard, taking off into the sky once she was out in the street.

Scootaloo carefully stepped into her house, minding the noisy floorboards.  She crept up the stairs and started down the hall towards her bedroom.  The door to the Taker’s room at the end of the hall cracked open and Mrs. Taker peered out at her.

Scootaloo’s ears fell flat and she timidly stepped back.  “H-hi.”