“Rarity?” I ask as she dutifully trots me on toward the hospital. I didn’t want to ask in front of my—our—her parents, but I tell her, “Sorry about yesterday. I, um...”
“Oh, think nothing of it Sweetie Belle,” Rarity says lightly. “It’s just been a very long week, and I wasn’t ready to face certain... things.”
“You really did save me,” I repeat to her. “And you’re still here helping me learn to walk again.”
“You have no idea how much I appreciate you saying that, Sweetie,” Rarity remarks somewhat flippantly, “Yet I fear I am a good ways away from being ready to raise a foal of my own.”
I almost fall off.
“W–what?! You... I mean o-of course it’s totally normal to do that!” I stammer out. “You um... you want to d-do that thing where you have a foal, after all! Even though I’m your sister, not your f-foal, you... um...”
Rarity takes a detour then, sitting me down on a soft, mushroom bench. (It feels like a real mushroom, but sturdier.)
“Sweetie, I don’t believe I told you about sister week since your amnesia,” she says seriously, touching my shoulder with a hoof. “The Sisterhooves Social was... well it’s Applejack idea to er, ‘rile’ things up as it were. But Sister Week is an opportunity besides that, for older sisters to... assess whether they’re ready to foal or not.”
“You knew about the Social?” I respond in surprise. Rarity grimaces and looks away. Oh shoot, that had to be like, the last question I wanted to ask.
“I may have... given the impression I was too... uninterested to know of such things, but yes, Applejack is my friend, after all,” Rarity says, looking at me again. “I wanted to spend Sister Week doing special things with just the two of us, and that huge order came in I—I botched the whole thing. You just made me so mad! It...”
She shook her head and sighed, “It showed me that I’ve a lot to learn about caring for somepony younger than I. Which is, ostensibly, what Sister Week is all about.”
“So by... taking care of me, you were...” I try to work out.
“Practicing!” Rarity clarifies for me. “It’s just a little tradition, so that young mothers aren’t thrown into their new role wholly unprepared. Like foalsitting, but over an entire week, rather than an afternoon. I have to admit I didn’t expect I would be so bad at it, that you’d run off all the way to the Badlands to get away from me!”
I blink at her. “Didn’t you ask Scootaloo?!” I exclaim in some distress. “You think I ran away because of you?”
“...yes?” Rarity says, smiling desperately.
“I only know what Apple Bloom and Scootaloo told me,” I say, obviously excluding Sweetie Belle from that list, “And I’m not sure if I should say, but... and I’m not trying to get out of trouble, when I say it was Scootaloo’s idea.
“Scootaloo wanted to go find the meteor that was falling, or something, t-to impress a um... somepony, and I just... didn’t feel like I had any reason to stay.”
“Tch, Rainbow Dash...” Rarity says, tonguing her teeth as if the taste of that name didn’t agree with her. She still looks... sad.
“But I didn’t go there because of you!” I continue to protest. “I just... I mean I don’t remember, but I don’t think I did.”
“Quite alright Sweetie,” Rarity says uncomfortably, “Let’s not dally here any further. We have an appointment to get to.”
“...wait, what about Rainbow Dash?”
“It’s... complicated, Sweetie. Now let’s go.”
And so, to my great excitementreluctance, Rarity takes me to physical therapy.
I wish I wasn’t so constantly aware of my little unicorn body. I certainly have not been making a big deal lately, about the feel of my bouncy little unicorn curls, my curly, swirly little unicorn tail, pointy little unicorn horn, and pudgy little curvy unicorn thighs, but Ace sets me straight there, right away. In physical therapy this morning, I’m quite well aware of every inhuman strange pony inch of me. With his very physical interaction, I can’t help but be aware of my body. My new body. Sweetie Belle.
I’ve got to learn to walk as her as fast as possible. That’s the only way I could have any hope of getting the help that she needs. Sweetie gave me the clues, and then faded away, and it’s like a... like a quest. A magical quest to find Lyra, and figure out how to feel her out if she can be trusted, then tell her to help because Sweetie is gone and I severely do not want her to be gone. I have to walk as fast as I can, even if being with a stallion like Ace is... distracting, and I’m feeling very physical around... him.
It probably doesn’t help that I didn’t masturbate the day before, or before that... or... before that? So I’m all primed and ready, well recovered from my last orgasm, sensitized and ready for another. Hopefully with his penis inside me, since of course I can do that now. Of course that would be the first image that crosses my mind, upon seeing how he’s not... wearing shorts today...
I try not to stare at him, so curious about the thought of being bent over and made a mare. It’s disgusting really, and scary. My little hips just... have that potential now. I try to treat him like just another pony, but his scent is so obviously masculine, and as we progress, he keeps touching me, just so lightly and carefully, on my back and on my thighs to... to steady me. But that sort of thing unsteadies my imagination. I wonder how it would really feel....
“Earth to Sweetie,” he says again dragging me out of my staring in dazed shock at his thick, muscular legs, with a stylized tennis racket inscribed on either side of them.
“Oh, um, right. I can walk and talk. I’ll just...”
“Just sing after me,” he says encouragingly.
“I have to si҉ng?” I yelp apprehensively, my ears going down on their own. I am still not comfortable with doing this...
“It’s the easiest way,” he shrugs. I–I think I can even hear a tune playing. It’s hard to pick up on—
“Take one step, and one step again,” he sings, taking a step beside me, and tilting his head encouragingly.
“Take one step, and one step again,” I reluctantly repeat, watching his legs so I don’t have to think where to put mine.
“If you walk and talk, you can walk with a friend!” he sings all cheesily, standing beside me and taking exaggerated steps forward, looking back expectantly.
I know exactly where this is going, but I do repeat, “If you walk and talk, you can walk with a friend,” trying to let the reluctance leave my voice, and just relax into the beauty of it. It’s easy to step forward with the beat of the song; everything just sort of falls into place that way.
“If you jump on the ground,” we sing together, me matching his simple hops in the air, “And you can’t make a sound, and your voice can’t be found—” I cut off in surprise, jittering to a halt, because I didn’t even notice, but Ace started harmonizing with me! Wait... did I ...stop?!
I look at him scared, and he gives me a calming look, singing encouragingly, “just sing~” giving me the opportunity to repeat him again. I don’t... have to? But I feel like I can!
Like I really want to...
“Just sing...” I sing uncertainly, and his growing smile makes my heart swell. And we sing together. This isn’t so bad, really. As we sing, I find it so easy to dance forward again. I wonder if this is how the real Sweetie feels trapped in her body like this. But even if I kind of really want to do it, I still feel like I’m the one moving and singing, not like someone’s moving my feet for me. I just keep knowing the exact right things to do.
“I can walk and sing, I can do most anything!” he prompts me while I somehow simultaneously sing along, the two of us making a broad circle around the green as we do, hooves firmly hitting the turf. “If my feet hit the beat, I’m never incomplete,” I sing with a bit of a cheeky smile at my... was it my rhyme?
I find myself singing alone, yet somehow still feeling accompanied, my once hesitant steps growing ever more confident, because it’s just like a marching song. “Never lost what to do...” I sing, and don’t have to remember when to put my feet down, I just aim them to land with every beat of the tune, while the words easily and beautifully pour out of me.
“You can walk and talk,” we sing, to my growing delight in the confidence of my movements. “If you walk with a song!” It’s so cool how Ace even harmonizes with me, as we round the hospital onto the front green with the path leading back to town.
Ace is such an awesome coach. I’m walking, really walking! It’s no trouble at all to strut down the street singing my little heart out. It feels welcoming, the ponies hopping alongside me and Ace, but also just the song. The more I give in to it, the more I feel like it’s proud or, or relieved or something. The world is just brighter like this, this amazing world of ponies where against all logic and reason we can come together and sing in harmony.
That’s how the song ends! Literally how it ends. “My own harmony!” Everyone lulls with anticipation, as Ace sings “Harmony,” to me, such a teasingly leading note. It makes me shiver inside as it comes out of me, that final answer to his unknowable question. I’m so giddy I’m just dancing along with everypony cheering as the song comes to a triumphant end and I fall on my face.
“Uffh!”
It’s not quiet. There’s a nice gentle overture of voices talking to each other near and in the distance. I remove my face from the cobblestones, lifting up on my front hooves to look around, and finally realize we’re all the way into Ponyville. The hospital is outside of town, if that wasn’t obvious. Well, we’re not outside of town anymore! There are ponies walking to and fro some fluttering in and out from the sky, and I’m lying in the middle of this colorful parade. Standing up, I shake my head, lifting a hoof unsure of whether I should use a leg to brush myself off or what.
“Sorry, I guess I slipped,” I tell Ace to the left of me, with my cheeks feeling hot. “A-anyway, where were we?” I take a...step...uh... why am I all... wobbly again? I put a hoof down and I lift it again and I... step forward. What was it, number 1 again? Why can’t I just walk anymore?
“Alright, Sweetie, now just hold to it,” Ace says beside me. “One step at a time, you can do it.”
“I thought I had it!” I say, surprised by a sob in my chest. “Why isn’t it working anymore?”
“You did have it!” he asserts to my shaky, uncertain form. “You got a taste of just how good you’re gonna do. Now all you gotta do is practice until you’re back up to steam again. Just put one foot after the other. Plant your hooves. Think walk, walk, walk, walk...”
I manage to walk, in fits and spurts, somewhat hindered because I’m trying to contain my whimpering. I don’t even know which legs to put where just thinking about it. I close my eyes trying not to think about it, but that makes it even more confusing, and I snap my eyes open, wobbling on the spot. Then with another frustrated sob, just force myself forward. I can’t even see the hospital anymore. Where are we?
“Alright, now ease it to the left,” he says, with his strong, manly hoof guiding my back. I look up at him in... something between confusion and gratitude, and still manage to sound sound resentful when I say “I d-don’t even know where the hospital is...”
“It’s just around the corner, Sweetie,” Ace croons to me, pointing at the road in front of me, where I can’t quite see around the house to our left. Pony pedestrians are here, saddlebags and all, but for a frozen moment I have a flash of that dream that... that memory where every corner is just more and more houses... oh hey, there’s Bon-Bon!
A somewhat pudgy looking cream colored pony, with curly bangs of pink and blue comes strutting in the direction opposite us, passing by while my wide green eyes pick up her two-toned curly tail, and the practically edible looking 3 candies decorating her rump. She doesn’t see me staring as she passes by (thank Celestia) and I don’t say hi to her or anything because I don’t exactly... know if she knows that Sweetie Belle knows of her, or what her real name is. Heck for all I know she’s not even a candy maker but some kind of super spy secret agent.
Pff, yeah as if. There’s only room for one sweet treat seller / secret agent in this town, and Pony Joe has got that in the bag. Uh, wait Pony Joe lives in Canterlot. ...I glance thoughtfully behind me at Bon-Bon again, and oh wow her ass is gorgeous—I mean—No, she doesn’t even have a laser pen or a radio watch, just some saddlebags that are not at all overstuffed with apples. I’m just drawing crazy conclusions, clearly still paranoid from my revelation about the flower trio earlier yesterday.
Wow, was that really... yesterday?
“C’mon Sweetie, let’s get going,” Ace prompts beside me. “I can carry you if you need, but I think you can make it all the way back on your own, without a song.”
I have many questions, but I’m still working on being able to walk and talk. I just nod nervously, and start bearing to my left. The road doesn’t look... scary anymore. It’s because I recognized somepony. These aren’t just strangers in cars; they’re ponies I could get to know. In fact, weren’t ponies singing with me?
Huh, they just... started walking after the song was done. I don’t feel like I was leading anypony in song, but... I guess that’s how that magic singing stuff ends, off camera? That’s what I’d do anyway, get done singing somepony’s song, and just walk on to whatever my business was. No big deal, just another day in Ponyville.
Feeling a little warmer about the town, because I can actually recognize ponies here, sometimes, I toddle my way around the corner to the left, and sure enough, there’s the hospital, off in the distance waaaaaaaaaaay
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
okay not that far away, but still farther than I want to walk.
“Straight shot, Sweetie” Ace says to me in encouragement. “Just start your feet going, and let your hooves do the walking.” I swallow dryly, and plant a hoof, lift a back hoof, and trip-trap sway-sway forward, trying to let my hooves just keep going where they want to. I have to take a break, when it just overwhelms me staying coordinated like that. But soon I’m getting all the way to the hospital courty-aah fuck there’s an upward incline.
“You okay, Sweetie?” Ace asks as I stumble to a halt. “Need another break? Try to talk to me if you can, so you don’t think about the walking so much.”
“H-how do I walk uphill?” I ask him. A pause for his astonishment and I hastily clarify, “I can walk uphill I mean, see?” I manage a few robotic looking steps. “It just feels like I c-can’t fall forward enough. Because it’s... uphill. A little.”
“I think we can nab that one today,” he says thoughtfully. “You can show yourself. But we need to get to the exercise room first, so can you handle it for now? It’s just a tiny incline.”
“Y-yeah,” I say, trudging forward. “It was... just the... thing... that... ugh...” I really wish I could walk and talk like I’m supposed to, but I pause to think, then say to him, trying to stumble forward as I do, “It’s not bad enough...to... stop me just... wanted to ask when... uhm...”
“Reading you loud and clear, Sweetie Belle!” Ace says happily. “C’mon, step 1,3 2,4! Give me a walk, walk, walk. You’re doing it!”
I smile, despite myself. I’m not doing anything I wasn’t doing earlier, but... I have made a ton of progress that I never thought was even possible. Ponies must just have... really plastic brains or something. Man, I’m a little pony, and I’m walking on hooves like I was born this way. That is so cool to just... experience.
All the pieces are in place, the slim muscles, the ligaments and bones, some weird spatial anomalies I don’t really understand. My body just fits well into this weird horsey walking gait. Obviously ponies walk like ponies, but it’s such an interesting experience to have this sort of motion feel like the easiest way for me to move.
My little hooves tapping the walkway, I resolutely place one after the other as we get into the actual hospital. (Ace holds the door open for me to creep through.) My tail’s bouncing behind me, in time with the swaying of my hips. Just gotta remember to push with my hind legs and catch with my forelegs, trying to fit in a nice, confident, easy gait—
“Hang another left, Sweetie,” Ace says, making me stumble. “Oops, sorry,” he adds bashfully. “But we’re here. Just get to your left if you can, and you’ll be in the exercise room!”
“Thank you f-for all this,” I mumble emotionally, just feeling my way to get around through the doorway to the exercise room.
“Whassat again, Sweetie?” Ace asks, leaning forward and tilting an... ear. Right.
“Thank you for all your... help,” I say more clearly, looking up and back at him, this strong man pony helping me walk again. He’s standing right where I need him to catch me if I fall. “I can’t believe how good I’m... how much better I’m doing.”
I face forward again, closing my eyes and shuddering a breath, then opening them and... walking. The room opens around me, as I stutter out dazedly, “E-even if... song makes it... it’s easier to walk... singing...”
It’s that same exercise room we were in before, with the mirrored wall and the comfily padded floor, and the stations that different patients can work at in parallel, with some leeway there. I say some leeway because Ace assembles an amalgam of two stations, by laying boards one after the other on braces that lock into them ...somehow. A sort of extensible ramp, that he can make shallower or steeper just by sliding the boards more or less overlapping each other. It hooks to a sort of table bench with a telescoping base. In short, it’s a pretty brilliant idea for training some pony who hasn’t figured out walking uphill yet.
He puts it as steep as possible, like a 60 degree angle, and says, “Okay, climb that.”
Oookay, not walking yet, I guess? I stand in front of it and rear up like with that column I was climbing and my mother, and put my white forehooves on this sheer wall. The pushapulling is really nice for climbing, because it lets you effectively have a grip on sheer surfaces as if they were a handhold, with the caveat that it gets weaker with more uneven surfaces that you can’t get your hoof flat against. In this case it’s child’s play (zing) to hold there while I walk my back feet up, planting their toes and pushing with them to move my front feet forward, easily inching my way up the steep plank to where it’s hooked on the table up top.
“Okay,” he says from just below me, “Now climb back down.”
That’s the other reason I like climbing, because I don’t usually get to be above big ponies like him.
So, I reverse the process, planting my forelegs, and letting my hind legs slip lower, one after the other, so I always have 3 legs pushed in at a time. While I watch curiously, Ace lowers the table with the crank in his mouth, and slides the boards out further, until it’s at more of a 45 degree angle.
“’kay, climb that,” he says. Climb...? Oh. I think I know what he’s getting at. 45 degrees still looks way too steep to walk up, but it’s easy enough to climb, so I get to the top, and then back my butt down again. With a sly smile, he puts it at like 15 degrees or something, barely a hill at all, and says “Climb that.”
Without hesitation, and something of an equally smug smile, I go up this new incline, not leaning forward and expecting to walk, but pulling myself up. The lower the angle gets, the less I have to pull myself up it, making a very smooth transition between climbing and walking. Can’t believe I didn’t realize this before. At like 5 degrees, almost flat I get confused. Not while climbing up, but while climbing down. My tail curls against my side as I start to turn around to “climb” down but... why don’t I just walk down?
“Alright, part 2,” he says, making my ear turn to him. “Walking down.”
Walking down is actually... lots trickier, because I always climbed down backwards before, and there isn’t a smooth transition between facing up and facing down. Thankfully there is a smooth transition between 5 degrees and 60 degrees. I successfully walk down almost flat, and then just a teensy bit of a hill, and... stumbling the next angle up, but Ace catches me against his thick meaty chest. D-d-amnit I’m a little filly, not supposed to think of those things, not supposed to think of that musky chest fluff...
A few stumbles later, and I’ve finally figured to lean back towards my butt when climbing down. I still say that’s one of the weirdest things about being a pony. Forget hooves; it’s having your butt behind you, instead of below you. My caboose is now literally a caboose. So, leaning backwards, towards my ...tail, I avoid falling forward while climbing down, letting the force go into my braced forehooves. And this works... surprisingly well. This pushapulling thing is really strong! I’m eventually creeping on wavering, wobbly legs, head-first down a 60 degree slope, with Ace on the floor there, arms spread should I ever slip, to fall into his manly, welcoming embrace. I feel like I’m looking into a sarlacc pit.
Okay I may have a little bit of a problem with stallions.
I nevertheless remain unloveandtolerated, making it down the slope entirely on my own, despite feeling like all my blood was going straight to my head. From... being tilted forward down, of course. Yeah, that’s the only reason!
“I know it doesn’t seem like much, Sweetie,” Ace says appeasingly, “But an even slope is the first step to conquering a big obstacle in your life.” He waggles his eyebrows at me.
“...what obstacle is that?” I ask in reluctant obedience.
“C’mon!” he says trotting gayly for the exit to the room. “Before you go for today, let’s see if we can get you all the way up to the second floor, and back down again!”
“Oh,” I say with a fluttery nervousness in my chest. “Stairs.”
He’s... correct again. I mean obviously, it’s his job and all. The stairs leading up to the hospital’s second floor are in two flights, and they’re a lot different than walking or climbing up a smoothly inclined plane, but not that different. He has me go up one of the flights, and it’s the same deal, just when I rear up and plant, my hooves are horizontal instead of at an angle. It means I have to lean forward more to correct it, but mostly it’s just climbing a step with my back legs, one after the other, then climbing a step with my front legs. Going down is similar, though I have to bunch up on each step collecting my legs underneath me before reaching down for the next step with my forelegs. Sort of a gaflump, gaflump, gaflump motion.
But it works. I’m at the bottom of the stairwell now, having just climbed to the top, and I didn’t even have to go down butt first. I just look up at him silently upon reaching the floor, too stunned to really even know how to think about all this. I guess I can... I guess I can climb stairs now, then?
“Your sister was telling me your house has lots of stairs in it,” Ace says, as he leads me out of the stairwell and down the hall to the front waiting room. “So I want you to practice on those, just what we did here, but make sure you have an adult present to catch you if you do so. You can go down backwards, if you don’t feel up to it, but you’ll find going down head first is much more natural after you get the hang of it. Besides that Sweetie, I just want you to try to walk while doing things: talking, singing, if you can do it with your dinner that would be good. You want to get so used to walking that you can do it without thinking, and doing something else will force you to take your mind off it, and let you just move more naturally.
“I think you’re ready,” he says, with me trying to listen as attentively as possible without falling over my toes walking. “You have lots to practice now, and a lot to improve on. I want you to do it all by yourself for the next couple days. I’ll see you again on Wednesday morning, and you can tell me all about what you’ve done. Then maybe we can work on more gaits, like the trot and the canter.”
“Not tomorrow morning?” I ask uncertainly.
“You need a lot of practice now, Sweetie,” he explains patiently. “Just work at it for a few days on your own, and we’ll see if you’re ready for anything new when I see you next.”
In the waiting room is my father, and Rarity, but not my mother. Sweetie’s mother, damnit. I meant... I don’t know what I meant. Having a family is almost as weird as having someone else’s family that feels like my own. I cluster a little close to Ace on seeing them, just a bit uneasy about the feelings I’m having for them. “Can you do that for me, Sweetie?” Ace asks again. I blink, and look up at him and
pressed right against him
I stumble back away from Ace and smile nervously, my tail all wiggly at the thought of... yeah I’m horrible I know. “Super clear, d-doctor Ace!” I chirp up at him. He smiles at me, then his smile goes kind of serious, and he looks over my head and says, “Oh, before you go, I’d like to have a word with you, if that’d be okay mister Belle.”
Mister...oh, my father and sister both came over upon seeing me, of course. Dad nods agreeably, and trots off back behind the reception area with Ace, while Rarity smiles down at me.
“You’re walking so good, Sweetie!” she says, with that pleased squeal to her voice. “That doctor really is a miracle worker, is he not?”
“He’s ama҉zing!” I say to her with honest passion. Then I resist sounding more like a weird, gushy girl, glancing aside and raising a hoof saying more casually, “I mean, he’s okay.”
“To his honestly earned credit, he’s saved both of us a great deal of trouble!” Rarity retorts meaningfully.
“Both of us?” I ask in an uncertain tone. “How did he help you?”
“Sweetie, darling,” Rarity scoffs with a toss of her mane, “Imagine if our parents were to return, and you hadn’t even been able to walk yet. I would have been in considerably more hot water than I am as-is!”
“Oh,” I say in realization, putting a pastern across my mouth maybe a bit lost in thought. Rarity’s broad white flank attracts my gaze again, and she’s come to be laid beside me, ready for me to mount up on her. I’d refuse, but... I’ve been walking this morning for an hour at least. ...that sounds really wimpy, but I’m still getting used to walking, so that’s how it is. I just meekly climb onto her, feeling the now familiar sensation of my sister rising up, warm and living underneath my belly.
Father returns from the back, and exchanges a few words with Rarity. “Where am I supposed to be today?” I ask them, once gathered.
“Oh, nowhere in particular,” Rarity tells me easily. “As it is your summer vacation. I don’t recall any obligations on Sundays outside of this new physical therapy ...thing. Would you like to go and play with your friends?”
My eyes widen. “Would I?!” I exclaim in excitement. I haven’t seen them for days! Or, a blur of Scootaloo yesterday...or... some time ago, but it’d be really fun! Oh, plus maybe they could sneak me over to that tower place. “Is Scootaloo’s wagon fixed yet?” I follow up hopefully.
“I believe so,” Rarity says thoughtfully. “You could ask her when you see her. It shouldn’t be hard to track her down as she’s not taking deliveries today.”
“Great!” I say enthusiastically. “I still walk really slow and not easily, so I want to make sure I’m not gonna hold them down.”
“Aw Sweetie,” dad says as he walks alongside Rarity. “Any friends of yours are gonna want to stick with you no matter what. You’re a little sweetheart!”
“And you too,” he says angling his head at Rarity, who blushes at the statement and looks forward silently. He draws her gaze back to look at him though. “You’re so good with your lil’ sister’s friends,” he tells Rarity. “I dunno how you keep up with all these ponies in town. Ya always seem to know what sorta pony everypony should know.”
“Well, I have to keep an ear on the grapevine, so to speak,” Rarity says dismissively. “To find the latest trends, what ponies are looking for. What kind of designer would I be, if ponies didn’t see just what they wanted, the moment they walked into my store!”
“Your dresses are beautiful,” I cut in, hugging her back more tightly, nestling my head up in her shifting shoulders. “But even without dresses at all, you’re still the best sister ever.”
“Well... I... ...hmph!” Rarity tries to respond, but just snaps her head forward again, blushing hotly now as she and father walk—no—trot across the Ponyville townscape. Excitingly comforting pony trotting.
Rarity knows where I’ll find Apple Bloom, and therefore in theory Scootaloo, so father goes off to do his cooking side job, giving me a moment alone with Rarity before my friends are once again with me.
“I think you were in more trouble with yourself, than with our parents,” I say out of the blue there.
“Hmm?” Rarity asks, not slowing, but turning an ear at my statement.
“When they found out,” I clarify to her. “They really weren’t mad, but you were mad at yourself. I know you want to help me, and you’re really sad what happened, but I just want to tell you that it’s not your fault.”
“Oh, but Sweetie it is,” Rarity starts, but I interrupt her with a firm,
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes it is, Swe—”
“No. It’s not.”
Rarity stops in the street, and looks back at me wanly. “Are we really arguing about this?” she asks me, in a rather unimpressed tone.
“Just... humor me on this,” I say, blushing and laying my head against her again.
Rarity doesn’t answer, or move, making me tense a bit nervously. I hope I didn’t say something really wrong.
“It’s not your fault either, Sweetie Belle,” she says to me. Before I can lift my head she starts trotting forward again, leaving me wondering as I ride on her back. Did I think it was my fault? I know it’s not. But just... thinking about how it’s not my fault feels relieving. Thinking about how it’s not even Sweetie Belle’s fault, even though she went and did this, feels relieving. I have to save her even more now, because in her wonderful, crazy adventure, she never deserved to be punished like this. I just have to figure out who can help me, and how to approach them.
Rarity and I stop for lunch together, as seems to be customary with her now. It’s a quiet out-of-the-way place as usual, and she helps me order a simple sandwich. I at least remember the part about liking amaranth bread. What can I say? It’s just good! When I’m good and full, my sister helps my good and full belly up onto her back again, and trots off in search of my friends. I mean, Sweetie Belle’s friends. Rarity asks for directions from ...some earth pony who’s purple and blue, who saw Apple Bloom and Scootaloo over down by the fountain. That’s where we end up going, and where we end up finding them.
There’s a beauty in Apple Bloom’s plain appearance. Her short, banana yellow fur is not the sort of thing that would stand out among pastel ponies, but her bright tomato red mane and tail make her very distinctive in appearance. She looks... familiar, like someone you look forward to seeing. Her big, friendly orange eyes and her round face with its easy smile make her just a very approachable pony in general. Even if she does snort when she laughs. I may have said, but that beautifully soft pink bow that she wears is just perfect for smoothing out the clash in the colors between her mane and fur. It waves in the air slightly when she whips her head back and forth, and even droops a little when her ears go down, pulling it with them.
Scootaloo is just as glowingly healthy as Apple Bloom, but in a wilder sense. She definitely has that Commander Hurricane spirit, even if she is colored kind of like a pumpkin. As a matter of fact, her colors are anything but pastel, very dark and saturated. I wonder if she gets teased about that. I wonder if she would mind me telling her that her mane reminds me even more of grape juice than does the purple part of my mane. She’s more motile than Apple Bloom, though both seem to be running around the fountain playing who can hide the longest or something, but Scootaloo is the pony equivalent of a hummingbird, both in her wings and in her activity. Her sleek, slim, but very warm body telegraphs that brilliant sense of motion, which Scootaloo embodies.
Actually I’m kind of fat, compared to the two of them.
Okay, not fat fat, but just, you know... rounder. Rounder in belly at least. Apple Bloom definitely has the thickest, widest hind legs between the three of us. Three guesses as to why, and the first two don’t count. I don’t want to say the attribution of marshmallow fits but I—that is to say, Sweetie Belle—seem to have an average build, while my friends are very athletic, even as far as ponies go. It doesn’t seem set in stone though, if Sweetie Belle has only had eight years to grow this body, and has only been running with these three for less than one. I could still be fat, or skinny when I’m older. When she’s older. I...
I wish I could grow up like this.
“Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo shouts, zipping right up to me, and then... sinking back down to the ground level, right beside Rarity and I. Apple Bloom gallops right up after Scootaloo, both looking up at me with big, bright eyes.
“Hi um, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom,” I say from my seat atop Rarity, feeling a little on the spot with how excited they are to see me.
“Ain’t seen you in a day or two!” Apple Bloom says. “Can ya walk yet? How’re you doin’?”
“I’ll let the three of you catch up,” Rarity interrupts, kneeling down so I can dump myself off of her. “I have a few errands to attend to. Do you have your wagon, Scootaloo?”
“Oh jeez, I totally forgot about that,” Scootaloo says, hoofing herself in the face. “Yeah it should totally be ready I just need to go pick it up.”
“Why don’t we all three go do that?” Apple Bloom suggests brightly.
“You feel up to walking that far Sweetie?” Rarity asks me hopefully. I reluctantly start to nod, despite not really feeling up to that, when Scootaloo says,
“She doesn’t have to, don’t worry. I can give her a ride on my scooter, until we get the wagon.”
Oh right... that.
I wish Rarity well, and she leaves us to our own devices. “Sorry she’s asking you to like, babysit me or something,” I say to them. “I really can walk lots um... better, but still really slowly, and I only just started learning about hills.”
“Ain’t no problem, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom says, flicking her tail over in the direction of a certain scooter laid against the fountain. Beside it are two helmets, and that doesn’t include Apple Bloom’s: one blue, and one green. “Scoots can give you a ride if’n we need it,” Apple Bloom continues to say, And it ain’t like we’re always running around. Maybe we can go to the creek or something, just play around there so’s you can move all slow like without feeling like we’re runnin’ away from you.”
“Well um, that’d be nice, but don’t feel a need to...” ugh, how do I tell them I need their help without like... saying something stupid?
“What were you gonna do without me?” I ask in a sort of cagey manner.
Apple Bloom blinks at that. “Play down by the creek?” she tries hesitantly.
“Oh,” I say feeling a bit unsatisfied at her answer. “Well then, let’s go, I guess?” Hmph.
While Scootaloo puts on her own helmet, Apple Bloom helps me with mine. I try to watch how Scootaloo does it. The catch just snaps together so it’s just a matter of pushing it with the two edges of your hoof, and then later opening it... somehow. Apple Bloom does the same as Scootaloo, also using her mouth to pull the strap tight. “Thanks, Apple Bloom,” I say to her gratefully. “I’ll have to figure out how to on my own sometime though.”
“C’mon, mount up Sweetie!” Scootaloo calls over, steadying her scooter with a hoof on the handlebars orienting it right at me. “Let’s go get my wagon back!”
“You had to put it that way,” I grumble under my breath, looking down at my hooves, and then taking a step... feeling slightly less unfamiliar with doing so. The scooter looms before me, and I tilt slightly to walk alongside it, looking at the platform thoughtfully. “OK hold on,” I say more audibly, yanking back to rear my front legs up in the air. With an unbalanced flail, I manage to clop them down on the scooter’s handlebars again. Scootaloo holds it steady as before, while I walk my other hoof on.
Then she leaps on it all at once, her hooves coming on top of my shoulders as she whirls around to brace her body against me. I’m trying to think innocent thoughts, but that filly’s belly is hot as an oven and I’m still not used to not having any clothes on. At least my tail’s in the way, but that’s a problem in of itself because I don’t want to end up grinding on Scootaloo with the darn thing. It just feels so intimate, the warm, tender, yet powerful way she leans close against me as her wings engage, and our pony toe stabilizers leave the earth, allowing us to be propelled forward at a dizzily increasing speed.
“S-scootaloo,” I have to say breathlessly. “Not too—fast...!”
“You are such a wimp, Sweetie,” Scootaloo laughs right beside my ear. It’s not a mean laugh though, and the noisy buzz of her wings evens out until she’s just about keeping pace with Apple Bloom galloping alongside us. Galloping is too strong a word really. It evokes imagery of a 3 ton beast, pounding thunder into the countryside as he rockets across the grassy plains, but Apple Bloom’s just a dinky little pony, dwarved like the rest of us by trees, doors and eaves, and other ponies, light enough she doesn’t hardly even disturb the road dirt as she runs along, in those repeated consecutive leaps that are collectively called a gallop. Apple Bloom makes it look so effortless, running along with a laugh in her voice and a spring in her— “Left, left, Sweetie!”
I snap my head forward and WOAH STATUE jerking the handlebars over, we barely miss just crashing right into the thing. “Sorry, sorry!” I say in shame, “I’m watching, really!”
“Take us around the square, captain!” Scootaloo shouts in response. “We’re almost there!”
“Where is there, anyway?” I say forcefully trying to make myself audible without turning around, focusing forward to turn the handlebars slightly left and right to guide the scooter out of harm’s way while the hot orange pegasus filly rubbing against me handles the propulsion. Maybe some more force is necessary.
“What’s our heading, engineer?” I bark out even louder. Not literally bark out, of course. Ponies trying to bark would be very silly. No, I just sound like Sweetie Belle, hollering over the sound of WOAH a cart just drove right in front of us. Who put me in charge of steering anyway? I think I’m losing my balance!
“Hang on Sweetie, just right through there!” Scootaloo exclaims, while I try not to emit a rising cry of alarm at the irrevocable tilting of our scooter, as we hurtle towards the yawning abyss of an open door right up in front of shit, stairs!
The scooter hits the stairs on the threshold to the door and stops short. I tumble forward over the scooter’s handlebars, and Scootaloo tumbles over me. We both end up rolling over each other, piling to a stop on what appears to be a solid stone floor.
“Sorry...” Scootalo says to me, crawling to her hooves and shaking her head. “I forgot you didn’t know how to ollie.”
“It’s okay,” I say, not bothering to get off my haunches, just collecting my back side underneath myself, and looking around at this shop. “This is um...”
I don’t see any artificial lighting. It’s only sunlit in here as far as I can tell, and somewhat dusty, but it’s perfectly easy to see all the strange contents of this shop. It’s a shop in both contexts, with a grinding stone, a thick metal door on the wall that looks like a furnace, and a workbench surrounded with several odd looking tools on articulated arms attached to the wooden rafters overhead, but it also has a window display where (surprise) there are scooters advertised for sale, but also some other things, like one thing that looks like a pedaled, wheeled sled, and a selection of unicycles, and some odd contraptions I can’t really identify, that could be used as vehicles, like a cane attached to a kite, attached to a... rotating disk?
There’s also something of a display floor, or just... part of the floor inside, where carts have been strategically placed, all solid oak wood construction, down to the archaic looking wagon wheels, with a surprisingly minimal amount of bright and colorful paint, mostly used as trim, and to draw flowers and hearts on it.
“Wow,” I mention quietly, “It’s like this place is selling anything with—”
“Wheely!” Scootaloo interrupts me, not to talk to me though, but calling out while she gallop ahead deeper into the back of the store. “Do you have my wagon? I need it!”
“Hold your horses!” a voice calls in the back, a mare’s voice that sounds sort of like Rainbow Dash, but a bit lower in pitch, and I dunno, broader? Like if Babs and Gilda had a magical lesbian spawn. “Scootaloo?” the mare asks coming around on four very healthy looking if short pony legs. For her voice, she’s actually a pretty diminutive looking pegasus pony. I can only say this from a relative comparison with other ponies, as I seem to be a pretty diminutive looking pony, but this pony appears to be fully grown, despite only having a partial head’s worth in height above Scootaloo. The mare’s dark grey fur provides a nice neutral contrast to her brightly bicolored green and yellow hair, and her cutie mark is I’m probably never going to see this pony on a regular basis, so why am I even bothering to commit her to memory?
Anyway, her cutie mark is a swath of rainbow, going past a wheel. While I fiddle with the catch under my chin, seeing if I can use these clumsy flat hooves to undo my helmet somehow, this rainbow tire mare talks with Scootaloo in an indignant tone.
“I thought you’d come crawling back to me!” she says to the suddenly squirmy looking pegasus... other pegasus. I suppose it’s not strange, since they’re always flying around way above where I can reach, but this is only the second time I’ve been in the room with two pegasi. Assuming Scootaloo even counted for that. Still have to find out what her deal is there.
“You fixed my wagon, right?” Scootaloo says persistently.
“Only after you trashed it!” this Wheely mare counters hotly. “You know what they call a pony who hurtles around at high speeds that could get their wagon broke or worse?”
Scootaloo whimpers.
“A daredevil,” Wheely finishes in a gentler tone. Scootaloo looks up at that, seeing Wheely smiling at her. “Yeah I fixed your wagon,” Wheely says in a dismissive tone, “If you keep going around breaking things like that, somepony’s liable to get hurt, so cut it out, okay?”
“Okay,” Scootaloo says, at least looking mollified.
Wheely leans forward to cup Scootaloo’s chin in a hoof. “But don’t stop going fast,” she says in tender advice to Scootaloo. “It’s part of what makes you such a cool little filly, and if you keep it up I bet you’ll be blowing us all away by the time you become a mare.”
Wait. Is Scootaloo going to trust me, if a grownup told her to go fast? Oh—hey, that worked! The sticky-up part slid under the catchy thing, that... my chin strap comes unlatched, okay? I don’t know what you call all that stuff. Feels good to let my hair out to shuffle lightly over my head.
“I was the one who said she should go slower,” I speak up, my bright, high voice easily crossing the length of the store. I stand up, discarding my helmet beside me, to start heading towards them shakily. “I said—um—” I have to stop, to talk. Still have a lot to go before I can just walk and talk like that.
“I said,” I call out standing still, “That if she goes slow now, then when she gets good she can go fast without breaking anything. But if she goes fast now, I—” I manage a step at least before stopping again. “If she goes fast now she won’t git gud. She can’t ever go fast without breaking stuff, unless she goes slow, first. But she can still go fast!”
Words tumbled out of me, I focus now on just moving my hooves right to get across the stone floor and slowly approach them, my movements gradually getting more confident as this morning’s practice starts to come back to me. As I struggle up to them, I can see the pony named Wheely is giving me a thoughtful look. I hope I’m right about this and not just delusional about how things really work. It’s not like I’m an expert in extreme speed after all.
“This your friend, Scootaloo?” Wheely asks.
“Oh!” Scootaloo declares, looking over at my unsteady approach. “Yeah! This is Sweetie Belle. She’s in one of the families I live with sometimes, but we made friends last year, at Diamond Tiara’s Cuteciñera.” Scootaloo leans closer to Wheely and whispers less than subtly through her teeth that, “She has amnesia, but we’re still friends.”
Ignoring that last comment, I speak up close to them now, saying, “Pleased to meet you Ms. Wheely um...”
“Wheely Bop,” she says holding out a hoof as though to shake hands.
I start to bring my hoof to hers, but then “Woah!” I blurt out in sudden excited realization. “Are you related to Bee Bop?” I exclaim hopefully.
Okay oops, that sounded a bit too... extra-knowledgy, and over-eager fangasmy. I bite my lip as she blinks at me, and just awkwardly lower my hoof to pat her outstretched one. I guess I’m supposed to pushapull to shake? The hoof touch is enough to snap her out of it, and she just pulls her hoof back, saying to me, “Yeah, she’s my sister. Are you in her class or something?”
“No! Um... maybe. Um... I’m just...” I stutter out, stepping back with a hind leg. “I have amnesia,” I explain as calmly as I can, “So I get excited when I can remember what I can.”
“Ah dunno a filly named Bee Bop,” Apple Bloom remarks, having walked in behind us while Scootaloo was introducing me.
“We might have played with her before?” I say turning to Apple Bloom. “She was blue and um... or no, maybe green. I don’t remember, sorry.”
“Golden haired?” Wheely prompts hopefully. “Hasn’t got her cutie mark yet?”
“Maybe we should get her into the Crusaders!” Scootaloo hops up, suggesting excitedly.
“I think so?” I answer as best as I can. “We maybe only really met briefly or something, I don’t know.”
“Wow, amnesia,” Wheely attests somewhat dizzily. “I can’t even imagine. How’d you get that?”
“We got... lost,” I say, at Scootaloo’s worried glance, “In the Badlands and I found a... glowy machine thing. I don’t remember it, but obviously I mean, but... yeah.”
“You found a working remnant?” Wheely says with wide eyes, “Just wandering out in the Badlands? Are you for real?”
I blink and shake my head. “No, um, we were just following the expedition. You know, about the meteor?”
Wheely pulls back at that, blushing slightly, saying, “Oh, uh... I hadn’t heard, actually.”
“You remember Jm. Twilight running off, right?” Scootaloo says to Wheely. “With like half her friends, and a bunch of ponies from Fillydelphia?”
...gem Twilight?
“Oh, yeah, that was crazy when...” as she trails off, Wheely’s deep, magenta eyes get even bigger. “You’re the missing foals?!” she exclaims at us. “You, Scootaloo?” she boggles at the little pegasus. Scootaloo in response smiles guiltily, and tries to shrink away.
“Wayl they found us,” Apple Bloom says, in a bold and irritatedly petulant tone, “So we’re not anymore. And we’re okay now. ‘cept Sweetie Belle, but we’re takin’ care of her.”
“It’s really no big deal,” I blush, trying to verbally squirm out of... whatever this is. “Just a little cart ride, and some dumb mistakes.”
“No, no, it kinda is,” Wheely says seriously, turning to face me. “That’s an unfluffed area,” she emphasizes, “It’s not safe down there, and you three got out of that with nothing more than amnesia?”
“Just me, and... wait, unfluffed?” I ask with a confused lip curl.
“You know, terrafluffing?” Wheely prompts me with a searching look.
Not entirely from lack of understanding, but the only thing I have to say to that is,
“what”
“It’s just a fancy word for farmin’!” Apple Bloom says, coming up to stand beside me and turning to give me an appeasing look. “Like what they’re doin’ over in Appleoosa. Makes the land safe again?”
“I have so many questions,” I mutter. “But... we really need to go, and we need Scootaloo’s wagon. So I don’t have to be... y’know,” I don’t want to say it again, so I just wave my forehoof around and try to look at Apple Bloom meaningfully.
“Oh! Right!” Wheely answers, instead of either filly, speaking up to the room in general. She spins and gallops off into her back room again. “Hold on,” she calls back on her way there, “I’ll just go get it off the stand.”
Wheely then returns with the wagon in tow behind her, handle hooked on her ...tail. Red painted wood boards, pretty white trim, nice round little grey wheels that look like stiff rubber, but I don’t even know how ponies would manufacture rubber tires. It rolls easily behind her on the smooth stone floor.
“Awesome!” Scootaloo shouts, charging over and looking at the wagon, pulling it off Wheely’s tail with a hoof, to roll it back and forth easily on the ground. “You even fixed the wobbly wheel!” Scootaloo exclaims delightedly.
“Just glad to help,” Wheely says, blushing a trifle under her greyish fur. “Take good care of the poor girl, and try not to smash her up again, okay?”
“I will, thanks Wheely!” Scootaloo says with a huge smile. She then picks up her scooter and rolls it over, and starts about attaching the wagon to it... with her mouth. I watch with interest, but it’s kind of hard to see how a pony could tie a hitch with just their lips and tongue, and a hoof to brace things under.
Afterwards, Scootaloo hops up on her scooter and starts testing the wagon attached behind it. “I can go so fast with this thing,” she says eagerly, doing figure eights around the cart display as she pulls the wagon experimentally behind her. “I’ll be doing cool tricks before you know it, just like Rainbow... Dash.” Scootaloo’s slight pause, and her slight downward ear tilt convey a storm of emotions about that particular pony. But the fact that it doesn’t stop her, that says something about Scootaloo too.
“Hey, about that,” Wheely says, putting a hoof on the wagon to stop Scootaloo, long enough to listen to her at least. “Your friend there, Sweetie Belle right?” Wheely says, giving me an uncomfortably direct look. “You listen to that filly,” Wheely tells Scootaloo, “She gives good advice.” Scootaloo looks at Wheely with big eyes, and nods silently.
Wheely lets the wagon go, though Scootaloo just balances there, reared up on the scooter’s handlebars, with her wings still spread, but also still. “She’s right,” Wheely emphasizes. “If you go slow and steady now, and you don’t go faster until you’re ready to, you can get a lot faster and better in the end than if you just try to force it all the time. So um... go fast, but pace yourself. Try not to bring me any more busted equipment, okay?”
“I will,” Scootaloo says, giving a curt and adorable salute. “Thanks, again for fixing it!”
Scootaloo aims her way out the door and rolls up between me and Apple Bloom, and Wheely Bop goes in the back of the house again. I look at the wagon with a nervous unease as Apple Bloom vaults right onto it and I... hesitate there touching the edge and try to think of my strategy. This wagon could be the key to my first chance to really do something about this, and I’m not going to let one opportunity pass me by as long as I don’t know if Sweetie Belle is okay or not. But that means... I have to tell some pony.
It’s the best chance I’ve got, for it not to blow up in my face trying to tell some pony. It’s the best chance I have, for finding some pony who can help since I last saw Twilight Sparkle, way off in that archaological dig. A pony who might actually be able to do something about this. Or help me talk with Twilight, and the princesses safely, without risking my identity. But... that means I have to tell someone.
“Are you coming, Sweetie?” Scootaloo says irritably.
“Yeah! Yeah... just... um...” I feel my ears dropping and just force them up. There’s nothing wrong, it’s just a little errand I want to run. I just have to tell her... a little.
“Say,” I tell my friend, “I think I remember a spiral shaped tower, somewhere in Ponyville...”
You can probably get the full song, if you have i2p set up. Why you’d even want to is beyond me though.