Scootaloo was lying on her bunk with her eyes closed when her nose caught wind of a particular scent, one she hadn't smelled in quite some time. At first she couldn't tell; maybe she was only imagining it, as she had only smelled the briefest of fragrances. But then she smelled it again, and stronger, a delicious fragrance wafting into the room from somewhere else on the ship.

Although she had been enjoying just lying there, Scootaloo decided that it was probably best to get up and eat something. She had been spending too much time just lying around in the past few days anyway. The filly lifted her body up out of the pony-shaped indent in the mattress she had created. Yawning, she stretched out her forelegs in front of her. Then she jumped off the side of the bunk.

As she jumped, Scootaloo stretched out her petite orange wings and they caught on the air. Instead of falling straight down, the pegasus filly smoothly glided downward in a wide arc.

But just before she was about to hit the ground, Scootaloo began flapping her wings. At first, they seemed to do nothing; she merely continued gliding downwards. She kept flapping, though—faster and faster—and eventually, at the last second, started propelling herself upwards and forwards. She rose three or four feet, flying across the hallway. Her mane grazed the ceiling.

"Hey, you hungr—whoa!"

Scootaloo turned her head to see her green-grey companion poking his head out from above the ladder just as she swooped by. She grinned and swerved downwards, coming to a landing at the end of the hallway by the cockpit. Her hooves made soft clangs on the metal as she landed.

"You said something about food?" Scootaloo asked.

"Yep! I'm making rice on the stove down here, and I was wondering if you wanted some."

"Oh, awesome! That sounds great." Scootaloo began walking over to the ladder, where Kevin's head already was retreating into the depths of the room below. In just a few short moments, the filly had climbed down the ladder herself, revealing the pantry lit up below. Kevin was already on the other side of the room, peeking into a metal pot which presumably held the rice.

"Should be just about done," he said. "Do you know if there's, like, a dinner table?"

"Hmm... I haven't seen one. Heck, I didn't even know there was a pot. Are there bowls and stuff too?"

Kevin nodded. "Yeah, they're just in one of the drawers here. Probably also from Tank's ship."

"Makes sense," Scootaloo said. "It shouldn't be too much trouble eating with our bowls on the floor then, will it?"

"Nah, that sounds good," Kevin replied. "Probably more dignified than a lot of meals in my life." He smiled as he said this. "Okay, I think it's ready. Lemme just get the bowls..."

Scootaloo expected him to reach up to the cabinets to get them; maybe he would even have to climb up onto the countertops to get to them. But she had momentarily forgotten that he was a unicorn, and he reminded her of this by setting the cabinet aglow with his verdant magic field. The cabinet door swung open and Kevin levitated two metal bowls down before shutting the cabinet. As the colt scooped rice into each of their bowls, Scootaloo momentarily reflected on how friggin' everything was made out of metal up here. She was starting to get sick of it; it would be refreshing once they got to the Kindred planet and she could see nature again.

"Here, eat," Kevin said, nudging one metal bowl across the floor to where Scootaloo sat. She reached out and dragged it towards herself.

"Thank you so much."

"It's no trouble, really," Kevin said, leaning over. He shoved his muzzle into the bowl and began to eat; Scootaloo did the same.

The rice was delicious; the warmth of the food in her mouth was comforting and invigourating, and it was a great contrast to the room-temperature fruits and vegetables that she'd mostly been consuming as of late. Each grain was delicious and moist, and she savoured the meal to the last bite. When she couldn't reach any more bites, she used her tongue to softly scrape the edges of the metal vessel, letting not a single grain go to waste. The bowl looked nearly clean when the filly finally raised her head from it. She carried the dish back over to the counter and then slid open a drawer below, grabbing one of the water bottles. Just a twist of the lid and the cool, refreshing liquid filled her mouth and flowed down her throat.

But all the same, it was more of what she kept doing over and over. Eating and sleeping. Sleeping and eating. Occasional writing in her journal, or maybe looking out upon the stars that surrounded them. But there was pretty much nothing else to do, and it was driving Scootaloo bonkers.