Octavia glanced at the clock on the wall of the living room, a moderate sense of concern beginning to steal over her. It was already well past sundown, and the quiet little suburb the Scratch-Philharmonica family lived in had been bathed in the soft bluish glow of fairy-lit streetlamps for hours. "Hey Vinyl," she asked her mate, "did Scootaloo tell you she was going to be late tonight?"

The white unicorn sitting on the floor in front of her shook her head absently, focused on the game she was playing. "No, why?" Her tongue poked out of the side of her mouth as she stared at the TV.

Octavia pursed her lips in minor irritation as she prodded the unicorn's head from behind with a hoof. "Because, dear, it's almost ten o'clock, and our daughter is still out there somewhere." She peered out of the window looking out onto the street. "I'm starting to get worried."

Vinyl shrugged, more or less ignoring the stabbing hoof. "I'm not. She's always a little late, isn't she? Besides, Scoot can take care of herself, and this is Ponyville, not Manehattan. There's not a lot of trouble she can get up to, is there?"

Octavia sighed shortly. "That's just it, though. She's always a little late. And Scootaloo is that unfortunate combination of reckless and resourceful that makes the two of you kindred spirits." She shook her head. "I don't want to find out what sort of trouble she could conjure up if she really wanted to."

Vinyl's ears twitched at the subtle change in her mate's voice. Turning around, she smiled reassuringly at the fretting earth pony sitting on the sofa behind her. "Tavi, you worry too much. Scoot may be a little...well, rambunctious, but she's smart enough not to get into any real trouble. Heck, she survived on the streets by herself for a while before we got ahold of her, didn't she? I think she'll probably be okay."

Octavia didn't respond immediately, and kept staring out the window with a nervous expression. It took a gentle nudge from Vinyl to bring her back to her senses, and she sighed again, smiling wanly. "I suppose...still, I'd feel better if you could, you know...maybe send Sweetie Belle a note? Just to see if she knows where Scootaloo might be."

Vinyl smirked, shaking her head. "If it's that big a deal, I'll see if Sweetie's seen her recently, but I still think--" She suddenly fell silent as both ponies' ears twitched towards the front door and the unmistakable sound of hooves clopping heavily up the front walk. Immediately, Octavia relaxed into the cushion. Scootaloo had a unique gait that was easy to recognize. It came as a result of the same physical oddity that rendered her flightless: while Pegasi normally had very light bodies with hollow bones that allowed them to support their weight in flight, Scootaloo possessed an extraordinarily rare genetic defect that resulted in her having the bone and muscle density of an Earth pony, which were, as Vinyl occasionally poked fun at Octavia for, extremely stocky and heavy. Therefore when Scootaloo walked up their front sidewalk, she had the long strides of a thin, lanky Pegasus, but landed with the weight of an Earth pony. She sounded, as Twilight Sparkle had once remarked, like an Alicorn.

"You're late," Octavia said as soon as the door opened, turning a stern, half-lidded glare towards her adopted daughter, who was only halfway into the house. The younger mare rolled her eyes theatrically and grunted something unintelligible before violently kicking the door closed and plodding down the hallway towards her bedroom. "Hey!" Octavia said, sitting up straight on the sofa. "Scootaloo, come back here this instant!" The hoofsteps didn't stop or even hesitate, but continued deeper into the house until they disappeared behind another slamming door. Incensed, Octavia leaped off the sofa and made to follow her daughter.

"Wait," Vinyl said, grabbing her mate's tail in her mouth to hold her in place as the relative quiet of the night was rent by the cacophonous strains of Ponetera streaming from Scootaloo's room, only slightly muffled by her closed door. Octavia continued walking, largely uninhibited by her much lighter mate's attempt to slow her down. She dragged the hapless unicorn down the hallway.

Upon reaching Scootaloo's bedroom, Octavia knocked firmly, shouting as best she could over the music. "Scootaloo! Turn that down and open this door!" Nothing changed, so the earth pony knocked again, harder. "Scootaloo! I know you can hear me in there!"

Vinyl sighed and dropped her marefriend's tail, joining her in shouting through the door. "Scootaloo, don't make me regret charging that stereo for you."

This did the trick. The door finally cracked open slightly, revealing one defiant ashen lavender iris glaring out at the pair from beneath a half-closed eyelid. "What do you want?" she muttered. The music blasting from the stereo behind her suddenly got much quieter, and she glanced over her shoulder in surprise for an instant before turning back around to glare at Vinyl, whose horn was glowing lightly as she magically turned the volume knob down. "Hey!"

"You know the rules, Scootaloo. You have to turn it down after sunset. And you have to let us in when we want to come in, remember?" The orange pegasus rolled her eyes slightly, but nodded and stepped back from the door, clopping back over to her bed and throwing herself onto it dramatically. As her adopted parents came in, she picked up a comic book from her bedside table and began leafing through it nonchalantly.

Octavia hadn't lost any of the ire that had brought her back to the room, and she stomped over to the side of the bed, narrowing her eyes at her daughter. "Well?"

Scootaloo glanced at her. "Well what?"

"Why are you late?"

She snorted. "I was hanging out with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom."

"Until ten?"

"Yeah."

"Doing what?"

Scootaloo put her comic down and sat up, glaring at her mother. "Doing whatever we wanted! It's not even that late, you know; everypony else's curfew isn't until eleven or even midnight. I'm the only one who has to 'check in' if I want to stay out after the bucking sun goes down!"

Octavia balked, surprised at this sudden outburst. "We just want to know--"

"You want to keep tabs on me, I know!" Scootaloo suddenly jumped off her bed and started stomping back and forth across her room. "You're so afraid I'm gonna mess up and make you look bad that you just have to keep track of everything I do, right?"

"No, Scoot, we just worry about you, that's all." The silver mare watched her adolescent daughter seethe with genuine anxiety, all traces of anger fading as she puzzled over this sudden change in attitude. "You've changed a lot in just a few years, and we're just, well...concerned, that's all."

"Well, don't be," the younger mare snapped, her wings flaring out in defiance. "I'm practically an adult, you know. I don't need you to hold my hoof anymore."

"We know," Vinyl said, trying to soothe the irate pegasus. "But try to understand, we're just confused. I mean, you were our little Scooter, you know?" Scootaloo snorted derisively at the endearment. Vinyl ignored her and continued, "You used to talk to us about everything, and now you barely even say 'good morning' before leaving for school and 'good night' when you come home. We just miss that, you know?"

Scootaloo grunted, but didn't respond. Vinyl took this as an opening to continue, and walked over to sit on Scootaloo's bed. "We don't want to hold your hoof, Scoot, we just want to be a part of your life."

"Oh yeah?" The Pegasus suddenly turned furious eyes on Octavia, who blinked and stepped back unconsciously. "Well if you don't want to hold my hoof, then stop sticking your muzzle into my business!"

"What do you--"

"You know what I mean!" she snapped, still glaring furiously at her earth pony parent. "You know what you did!"

Vinyl suddenly stood up, stepping between her daughter and her mate, eyes flashing with anger. "Don't talk to your mother that way!"

Slightly startled, Scootaloo turned her ire on Vinyl, albeit with slightly less malice in her tone. "Well, tell her to butt out of my life!"

Vinyl took a step forward, her eyes and horn now starting to glow a faint blue. "She's your mother, and she'll be as involved in your life as she wants!"

"Vinyl--" Octavia started, but she was quickly drowned out by Scootaloo's shrieked riposte.

"I don't want her in my life!"

A sudden deafening silence fell over the room, amplified by the fact that the music had stopped sometime during the argument, unnoticed by any of the mares. Octavia's eyes glittered with tears gathering on her lower eyelids, and her pursed lips trembled slightly as she stared at her adopted daughter. The young pegasus' livid expression faltered slightly at the sight, but she quickly hitched it back into place. Vinyl's face fell in shock before tightening back into an enraged grimace. Her horn ignited into literal flames of blue magic that licked up through her mane, mirrored by a similarly foreboding aura that flickered around her eyes, shadowed by her furiously furrowed brow. "Apologize."

The unicorn's dangerously quiet voice gave Scootaloo pause for a moment, but she stood her ground. "No, I mean it."

Vinyl took a step forward, causing Scootaloo to step back, her wings folding defensively against her back. "Apologize to your mother!"

"No! She--"

"APOLOGIZE!" Vinyl's eyes disappeared behind a roiling blue aura that curled up around her temples and seethed through her electric blue mane. Her horn flashed and flickered as sparks flew from the tip.

"Vinyl!" Octavia's voice, calm but stern, cut between her daughter and her marefriend as easily as if she'd stepped between them herself. The fuming unicorn suddenly straightened, the magical aura fading in an instant as she realized what she had been doing.

"Scootaloo, I..." She fumbled for something to say, her face burning with a blush that showed through her ivory coat.

"It's alright, Vinyl, just calm down." Octavia walked over to her mate's side, rubbing gently against her as she did.

Slightly unsettled, Scootaloo defiantly repeated, "I'm not going to apologize."

Octavia shook her head dismissively, raising a hoof to wipe the tears from her eyes. "That's fine, dear. I think I understand what's going on here." Scootaloo raised an eyebrow at her mother, who continued quietly, "Miss Cheerilee told you we talked, didn't she?"

Scootaloo frowned at the floor, but didn't say anything. Octavia nodded and sighed. "I thought so. Alright, I think it might be time for everypony here to calm down, have a seat, and talk." She walked over to Scootaloo's bed and climbed up onto it, lying down and patting the quilt next to her. "Come on, Scootaloo, can you forgive me long enough to let me explain?"

Scootaloo hesitated for a long moment, still scowling, but eventually deigned to join her mother on the bed. After a moment, Vinyl joined them, her face still sporting a faint pinkish hue and a distinctly sheepish expression. She murmured to Scootaloo as she sat down next to her, “I’m really sorry…I shouldn’t have gone off like that.” The orange filly didn’t respond, but she begrudgingly leaned into her mother’s flank for an instant, a silent acknowledgment of the apology.

Vinyl smiled, but Scootaloo immediately covered the show of affection with an accusatory stare at Octavia. “Alright, fine, I’m listening. So…talk.”

The earth pony sighed lightly. “First, I want to make it clear that we aren’t trying to ‘butt in’ to your life. We’re just trying to be good parents, and it’s getting harder every day.” She smiled, nudging Scootaloo with a hoof. “You’re growing up, and it’s tough for us to keep up.” The filly looked away, not responding. “Anyway, the only reason we’ve been meeting with Miss Cheerilee is because she came to us at the beginning of last season and expressed some concern with how you were treating some of the other students.”

Scootaloo’s gaze suddenly snapped back to Octavia’s face, surprise and indignation plainly painted on her features. “What?! Like what, she thinks I’m a bully or something? I’m not a bully! They’re the ones who bully me! She should be snitching to their parents, not mine!”

Octavia closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. “She was not snitching, and she doesn’t think you’re a bully. She thinks, Scootaloo, that you are unnecessarily antagonizing some of the other students, and before you go off again,” she added, cutting across a fresh tirade from the younger mare, “she did note that they were also antagonizing you, and that she would in fact be talking to their parents as well. The point is that she spoke to us, and asked us if we had any ideas.”

“Ideas for what, for how to fix me?” Scootaloo snapped.

Vinyl spoke for the first time. “No, ideas for how to help you learn to get along with somepony you may not like very much. Scootaloo, you’re not always going to be friends with everyone, and that’s fine. There are some ponies I don’t like very much, and even though I’m not very good at it, sometimes you just have to try to get past that. You can’t just insult and ignore everypony you don’t like.”

“Well, maybe they deserve it,” she muttered.

Octavia shrugged. “That’s not the point. The point is that when she asked if we had any ideas, I told her that sometimes the best way to learn to get along with somepony is to be forced to. After all, that’s how I learned to get along with your mother.” She smirked across the bed at her marefriend, who grinned back at her.

“Whatever,” Scootaloo sneered, “it’s not going to work.”

Octavia sighed heavily. “Fine." She glared at her daughter. "Fine, if you’re going to be a foal about it, let me try and explain it more directly. The Academy is not interested in a filly who’s too proud of herself to get along with somepony she doesn’t like.”

“I’m not—“

“And,” Octavia continued, ignoring her daughter’s interruption, “they will most certainly be interviewing everypony they can when you apply for admission, because they’ll want to know everything about you, from how you got your cutie mark, to how you treat your friends, to how you treat everypony else.” She narrowed her eyes at her impetuous charge. “You understand what that means?”

Scootaloo was momentarily speechless, startled into silence by her normally quiet mother’s sudden tirade. She shook her head.

“It means that if you don’t do this, they’re going to assume you don’t know how to get along with somepony when you really have to, and they’re going to throw your application away. They aren’t interested in teaching you how to be an adult, and they’re not going to waste time waiting for you to grow up.” Octavia suddenly stood up, tears of frustration and anger in her eyes. “So yes, I told your teacher to make you do a project with someone you didn’t like. Someone you don’t get along with, someone you would have to really dig deep and try hard to work with, because if you can do that, then you can do anything, and you damn well know it!”

With that, the agitated earth pony stormed out of the room, disappearing down the hallway, leaving the unmistakable sounds of barely contained sobs in her wake. After a moment, the master bedroom door slammed, leaving Vinyl and Scootaloo still sitting on the bed, staring at the open door to the filly’s bedroom.

Vinyl got up to follow Octavia, but stopped at the doorway, glancing over her shoulder. “We’re not your enemies, Scootaloo.”

Scootaloo blinked, tears of indignation lining her eyelids as well. “I never said—“

“Yeah, well…some things don’t have to be said.”

The pegasus got up, her wings standing out from her back in her frustration. “But she—“

“We, Scootaloo,” her mother corrected her. “We did it together. Your mother and I were worried about you, and we just wanted to help.”

“You should have talked to me first!” Tears started to slide down Scootaloo’s cheeks as she tried to explain herself.

“We wanted to!” Vinyl suddenly turned to face her daughter, her face pained rather than angry. “We wanted to talk to you. We’ve always wanted to talk to you, but you’ve been shutting us out! For years! And we get it, you’re a teenager. You don’t want to talk to us, but sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do, Scootaloo.” She sighed, turning back to the door. “So we did.” Without another word, she walked out into the hallway, gently closing the door behind her and leaving Scootaloo alone with her thoughts.

It was nearly midnight before Scootaloo managed to finish fighting with herself, alternating between lying on her bed, crying bitter tears of frustration and self-pity, and furiously stomping around her room, ranting indignantly about how right she was and winning imaginary arguments with her imaginary parents. Eventually, however, she exhausted her stores of depression and rage and found herself sitting silently in the middle of her room, suddenly realizing that parents were right—as usual—and that she had been acting like an idiot.

Reluctantly, the filly hung her head and plodded out into the hallway, finding her way to her parents' bedroom and hesitantly rapping the door with a hoof. A few moments passed before the handle turned and the door opened, revealing Vinyl's coolly frowning face. "Yes, Scootaloo?" she asked, her voice stiff and icy.

Scootaloo grimaced, digging for words she didn't say very often. "I, uh...I just wanted to...to apologize." When Vinyl didn't immediately react, she continued. "For making Mama Tavi cry. And for saying I didn't want her in my life." The unicorn still didn't move, and Scootaloo shuffled her hooves nervously. "And, uh...for being late, I guess."

Vinyl pressed her lips together and gave her daughter an appraising look. "I'm not the one you have to apologize to." She stepped back and inclined her head towards the bed, where Octavia was lying, a book propped up on her chest and a nonchalant expression that didn't quite hide the fact that her eyes were still rimmed with red and the fur on her cheeks was still slightly damp and darkened.

Scootaloo felt a stab of guilt in her chest as she walked into the room, letting her wings droop down at her sides. Octavia glanced at her, her expression unchanged. "Yes, sweetheart?" Her voice was still as gentle and tender as it ever was. It made the pegasus' heart sink.

"I, uh..." Scootaloo rubbed one of her forelegs with the opposite hoof anxiously. "I just wanted to, uh...say I'm sorry. For, you know...for yelling at you." She grimaced and added, "And for making you cry." She looked at the floor sadly. "I guess I wasn't being very 'adult', was I?"

"No, you weren't," Octavia agreed frostily. Then, her face suddenly broke into a broad smile. "But you are now. And that's what matters. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry, too."

Scootaloo looked up in surprise. "Really? Why?"

Octavia put her book down and repositioned herself on the bed so she and Scootaloo were eye-to-eye. "Because I was expecting you to act like an adult without treating you like one. That was wrong. Let's start over."

"Okay..." Scootaloo walked over to the bed and climbed up onto it, sitting next to her mother.

"Alright," Octavia said, "Miss Cheerilee tells me you've been butting heads with some of the other fillies in your class. I suspect I know who, but I'll let you tell me, because I know you know."

Scootaloo nodded. "The same two twits I've been 'butting heads with' since I started going to school there. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon." She glared at the floor. "Because they're snooty, selfish, stuck-up bimbos who couldn't count as high as the number of brain cells between them." It occurred to her after she said it that this might not be as scathing an insult as she'd hoped, so she clarified herself. "It's not very much."

Octavia giggled. "I gathered. Regardless, I think it's important for you to learn how to get along with somepony you might not be very fond of, don't you agree?" Scootaloo grunted noncommittally, and Octavia added, "I know the Academy would think it was important."

"Is that why you told Miss Cheerilee to make the project pass/fail, then? Because you know if I fail this season, I'll never get into the Academy."

Octavia nodded. "Yes, I admit I was concerned that you might not understand the...purpose of the whole exercise, so I suggested she amplify the stakes."

"And Silver Spoon?"

"Is that who she picked?" Octavia mused, tapping her chin with a hoof. "Interesting. Well, she knows the two of you and your...relationship better than we do."

"You didn't suggest Spoon, then?"

Octavia shook her head. "As soon as I suggested making you work with somepony you didn't like very much, she mentioned that she knew precisely who she wanted to pair you with."

"Why Spoon?"

The silver earth pony shrugged. "I couldn't say, dear. Perhaps you should ask Miss Cheerilee."

Scootaloo sighed. "Yeah, I guess...I still have to figure out what she wants us to do for this stupid project anyway." She groaned. "I can't believe I'm gonna have to carry that airhead--"

"Scootaloo!" Octavia scolded her lightly.

"What? She's an idiot! She's always asking the stupidest questions in class, she's always the last one still working on every test, and I've seen some of the homework she's turned in. Pound Cake could do a better job." She sighed theatrically. "I'm gonna end up doing all the work, I just know it. And I'll probably still fail."

Octavia pursed her lips. "While I doubt that's even remotely true, if you're concerned about it, talk to Miss Cheerilee. I'm sure she won't let Silver Spoon's contributions...or lack thereof...endanger your grade. It will be fine."

"Yeah, maybe."

Octavia rolled her eyes, but smiled. "Anyway, it's very late, and you still have school in the morning, so you should probably get back to bed." She nuzzled her daughter affectionately, ignoring the filly's patronizing groan. "Thank you for apologizing, sweetheart. That was very mature of you."

Scootaloo smiled in spite of herself. "Yeah, well...it's no big deal."

"It is to us." Vinyl came over and nuzzled Scootaloo as well, drawing another exasperated grunt. "Lets us know we didn't completely screw up raising you."

The pegasus giggled. "Yeah, yeah..." She slid off the bed and trotted out into the hallway, calling over her shoulder as she left. "G'night, mom."

Her mothers responded in unison, as they always did. "Goodnight, Scooter."