‘Shoot, we still didn’t get our cutie marks. Ah really thought we would this time…’

‘What would a cutie mark in ventriloquism even look like?’

‘I don’t know. I hope it wouldn’t be a hoof up the puppet’s-‘

‘Scootaloo, stop. I don’t want that image in my head.’

The Cutie Mark Crusaders had just finished the week’s classes. They’d performed a ventriloquist act for their project on ‘Unusual Talents’.  The puppet was meant to be Rainbow Dash, or who it was based on. Scootaloo, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle had all worked on the body and it was perfect. Unfortunately they only had 3 colours of yarn and a  small pile of orange hairs, which Scootaloo insisted were not from her coat, for the mane.

But after all their effort, Diamond Tiara had messed the whole performance up my drawing the class’ attention to the purple tail protruding from the wings and a microphone cable running across the stage and pointing out Sweetie Belle, who conversed with the puppet, wasn’t doing the fairly accurate voice. It had been a long week with no cutie mark rewards for their efforts. They decided to continue their crusade tomorrow.

‘So we’ll meet up at HQ tomorrow for break dancing.’ Sweetie Belle stated to make sure the 3 fillies were all in agreement. Applebloom looked nervous. She was the worst at dancing, even if was only by a small margin.

‘This is gonna be awesome. I can’t wait. I’ll see you gals tomorrow, I’ve got to go.’ Scootaloo cheered. She was already flapping her wings to try and build up speed on her scooter. She barely heard the goodbyes of her friends. She was gone within an instant.

‘Why does she always run off?’ Applebloom sighed.

Entering at the tree house, Scootaloo looked around for her homework. She’d left it here yesterday on the table in the middle of the room. It had gone since, but she had an idea where it was. She’d hidden many things in her hiding place and stored some of her most valuable memories there too. Oddly enough, she’d found everything she’d stored in the corner of the room with a note in very familiar writing. Rainbow Dash’s writing. It was labelled ‘Scoots, I’ve hidden something I’ll need in a while under the tree. Here’s the stuff I found. Thanks.’

It was odd that RD didn’t have enough room in her house. She’d had a whole room empty and an empty guest room where she had stayed one night. But Scootaloo never questioned Rainbow Dash and did everything she’d asked. She’d even changed her philosophy for a while to ‘What Would Rainbow Dash Do’. But it wasn’t until her homework had disappeared that she’d thought to look at what Dash had stored.

She crept out of the tree house and behind the tree. The same orange fur they’d found for the mane was caught on the tree. She was wary. Had there been an animal in there? What if they’d damaged Rainbow’s stuff? Scootaloo instantly stuck her hoof into the gap in the bottom of the tree, to protect whatever Rainbow Dash had stored. And in the hole was…

A half-eaten bag of potato chips and a pillow.

Scootaloo, disappointed with the results of her betrayal of Rainbow’s trust, sighed.

‘I guess she can’t be awesome all the time.’ She went back up into the tree house and looked once again for the homework. After half an hour of looking and a five minute break, she thought to look elsewhere. It apparently was in the tree house and it was getting late. She ought to be home by now. She’d probably left it at home, right? But she was sure it was here. Yet no evidence of it ever being here was around.

She’d have to redo it, I suppose? Having to re-read the whole book ‘How to care for pets’ would be the easy part. She also needed to re-write her whole essay on common pet habits, re-interview a known pet carer (or in other words, Rainbow Dash) and fill out a day diary for what a pet does. That wouldn’t be easy. She’d have to fudge some of the details and hope for the best.

‘Oh well. I better get started ASAP.’ She turned, at stared at Celestia’s sun. The sunset was awesome. She admired Celestia’s magic, to be able to lift something about a zillion times bigger than she was, is nothing but awesome. Although, she’d never admit it to any pony. The only thing ruining the scene was an orange figure running after some very large paper that was flying toward her. Although she couldn’t fly, she could reach the floating paper. So she did. She looked at it and saw a title. ‘Rainbow Dash’s Pet’.

‘Hey! This is my homework.’ she shouted, suddenly becoming cross at the ever close figure. It certainly wasn’t a pony. It was a small dog-like animal.

‘Winona?’ Scootaloo called, the orange animal stopped. It looked straight at her. She could have sworn she heard it exclaim something rude. She had to find out. No animal could talk. Not even her foal-hood chicken friend. She approached it with the ever most caution not to startle it. She didn’t want to run the risk of it running, especially if it had her homework.

As she got 5 steps closer, it took 1 step back. It wasn’t until she was within a foot from it that it calmed down and tilted its head out of confusion. Scootaloo returned the look. How could it be so worried and then just stop? It certainly was a confusing animal. She’d even missed its transformation from confused to happy. It appeared to be almost as happy as Pinkie Pie, although nothing could beat Pinkie, even on one of her bad days. They both wanted to break the most awkward of silence that was emanating between them. It wasn’t until the corners of the mammal’s mouth turned up that Scootaloo knew she wouldn’t be interrupted if she broke it.

‘H-Hello’ she stuttered. She didn’t know what else to say, even though she’d had a lot to say before she’d broken the silence. It was instantly turning into the most awkward meeting in the history of Equestria. Or at least the most awkward that had happened today.

‘Hi, Scootaloo.’ the canine asked, grinning when it said her name. She looked on. It talked! And it knows my name! She was screaming in delight until she realised. How does it know my name? She raised a hoof to indicate she wanted to talk but the animal interrupted her.

‘Don’t ask. I’ll explain inside.’ It chuckled, gesturing towards the tree house, ‘I’m Lunar by the way.’ It brushed up beside her and led her back to the tree house. She couldn’t help but feel that there was more to this animal than met the eye.