Everyone was already in a panic below deck. I almost tripped over Apple Bloom as she dashed down the hall and shouted into one room after another for her missing friend. Dawn and Sweetie Belle stood on the stairs, Armor right behind them.

"Where did you last see her?" he asked the two foals, who looked at each other briefly.

"After we were with our moms. She was sad because she had lost something and ran out the room. We thought she would be somewhere on the ship," Dawn explained. I was finally able to figure out why the youngsters had searched the grass so thoroughly.

"Light, bring the little princess and get the others on deck. We’ll go find her," Armor stated and disappeared upstairs. I did as I was told and grabbed Apple Bloom, who tried to sneak past me to look somewhere else, as well as the other two. Now the three hovered a few inches above the ground before I put them on my back.

"Where’s Holly?" I asked, looking back. The two fillies both had tears in her eyes, while Dawn just looked sadly at the ground.

"She's..." Apple Bloom began and sniffed "...in the infirmary with Fluttershy." I sped down the hallway and opened said door. Holly was next to the yellow pegasus on the bed and seemed to be sleeping peacefully. I put Sweetie Belle down and then the others followed on their own.

"You stay here. Luna will be here in a minute to take care of you." I closed the door and looked across the room as Rarity, Rainbow, and Hawk searched behind the shelves. I had no time for that and went down the stairs to the lower level where Luna had settled in one of the rooms to rest. I ran past the first, then stopped at the second door. I was about to knock on Luna’s door when I heard something from across the room. It was quiet, barely there, but it was there. Someone was crying. I stepped back from Luna's door and put my ear to the other. Now I could hear it more clearly than before. I carefully opened the door and looked into the dark room. It was our storehouse filled with jars, barrels, crates, and the distribution system for the water. The light that made ​​it past me through the door was enough to make out the silhouette of a small crying bundle of orange fur between a box and a barrel on the lowest shelf.

"Mom ..." it sniffed. I was always good with children, loved to play with them, and getting dirty didn’t bother me. I myself had been a litterbug, or at least my grandma had always said so. No mud hole was safe from me. However, as I saw the otherwise so hyper and cheerful pegasus lying there, I was at a loss for words. I did not know her mother, though I knew she was in the hospital far away in another world, and that could certainly be a scary thought for a child or foal. I wanted to close the door again, but I could not just leave her there.

"Scootaloo..." Her head snapped up as I approached her. In a panic, she kicked out, and one of the glasses fell off the shelf, struck my head, and broke. The preserved cherries ran down my face along with the spreading headache. She disappeared behind the shelf and other boxes. I was really the wrong person to talk to her.

I really left the room this time and freed myself as best as I could from the cherries and collected them in a magical bubble. It accompanied me as I slowly walked down the corridor, looking for Rainbow. She knew Scootaloo better than the rest of us. After all, she was the only one who knew her mother. Nobody was on the lower deck, so I went further up where the entire crew was gathered. Trixie was there, hoofing everyone a diamond. These floated over to their new owners and remained floating above their heads, so it looked as though we were about to play a round of Sims.

"You can call off the search," I said, and everyone stared at me, aghast. "She's down in the pantry.

"Are those...?” Rarity asked in horror and pointed at my head.

"Yep, these are cherries. I tried to talk to her, but I only got a glass to the head." I looked as Cadance was almost on her way down, but I blocked her. "Rainbow, I think you should go." I got another dumbfounded look as the shocked pegasus stared at me.

"Light, I think that glass did more damage than you thought. I'm not good with foals,” she pleaded and looked over at her friends for assistance.

"I think Light is right, darling. I mean, she already looks up to you. If she is going to speak to anypony, it will mostly likely be you.” Both Pinkie and AJ nodded as well. If the others knew the relationship Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo had, they would have certainly also agreed.

"Rarity is right – you are her super-duper hero!” exclaimed Pinkie and grabbed Rainbow’s face with both hooves and pressed it a little. She pushed Pinkie aside and flew a few feet into the air.

"You can’t—" she exclaimed before she was caught by my marefriend’s lasso and landed unceremoniously on her haunches.

"Rainbow, yer the only one who knows Scootaloo well enough,” said AJ when she spat out the lasso and knotted it at a post. "If anypony understands at all what she’s going through, then it’s you."

The addressed pegasus only groaned. "Ugh... whatever." She pulled on her leash to signal that it could be loosened.

"Not so fast, sugarcube." With that, she took the lasso between her teeth again and handed it to Hawk, who was standing next to her. "I’m sure Hawk will be happy to accompany you down."

"I've always wanted a pony as a pet. Can I keep it?" she asked Star happily, who only looked at the spectacle before him with a stoic look. For my part, it was somewhat upsetting, to say the least, to hear and see how Rainbow Dash tried to run away from something like this, especially when it involved someone who looked up to her like that. Without waiting for a reply, the two went down, closely followed by Cadance. When they were about to disappear through the hatch, the diamonds flew over their heads from Shining Armor’s aura and back into the bag from which they had come.

"Star, please take over for Light until he gets rid of the cherries," Shining Armor commanded before he disappeared into the meeting room, looking visibly relieved. I looked across the deck at where he had been sitting calmly about ten minutes ago. His cup of cocoa lay broken and leaking on deck, the contents slowly dripping down the side of the ship. He was at least as concerned about the presence of the young ponies as I, for he knew what danger meant.

"I’m going to take a bath." I nodded politely to Star and went down to the bathroom. The shower had a large wooden tub that could surely hold enough water for a bath. I turned on the water and adjusted it to a comfortable temperature. The heating crystal, which was mounted between the pipes, lit up like the others that illuminated the rooms and corridors here, and soon the room was filled with warm steam.

After she had collected and stored every diamond again, Trixie entered the meeting room. Shining Armor sat at the large table with the globe that was freshly filled with the information the map from Light’s car had provided. He moved it back and forth a little and seemed to study a particular point in more detail.

"Trixie has the diamonds here." She placed it in the corner of the room from which they had come.

"Thank you, Trixie. Can I ask you something?" The request was unexpected. She closed the door and turned to face Shining, who took that as a yes. "What do you think of today’s mission?" She did not think twice.

"It was irresponsible and inconsiderate. He gave a potential threat its weapon back and turned his back on it.” Though she wished she could have said otherwise, Light was to blame.

"I agree. He is too emotional in that matter, a mistake on my part as well. I will relieve him from his post. Although he has the knowledge, he is not a soldier like you." He shook his head and then banged a hoof hard on the table. “We have foals here, damn it. This was not part of the plan..."

It took a while until the bathtub was filled with enough water to comfortably be submerged in it. I took my hoof back out of the water, quite pleased with the temperature. I took off the necklace with the crystal from around my neck along with the still quite fresh bandages. Cadance would have to bandage me up again later. I placed the necklace on the small table and threw the bandages in the bin before I glided into the tub. It felt absolutely heavenly. I had taken my last bath months ago, even before I became a pony. I didn’t had much of a choice at home, as I hadn’t owned a tub in the first place, and I had showered at the farm. The vapour penetrated through the fur on my neck, and I slowly slid further down in the water and let out a low pleased growl.

The water slightly burned my wounds, and it was a bit unpleasant around my genitals, but that was the way I liked my baths, especially the relief when the pain started to fade. I leaned back, not as a pony would but like a human: with my back against the wall of the tub and hind legs stretched out in front of me. “Ah, that’s the spot.”

I closed my eyes and blended out the slight discomfort from my position and instead concentrated on the feeling of the warm water around me. The only thing missing was quiet music. For a moment, I slid completely under water so that my mane washed any residue from the cherries as well. In that moment, a knocking sound reached my ears that startled me quite badly. I sat back up in the water and rubbed the water from my eyes. “Yes?”

“Can I come in, Sugarcube?” I paused for a second. Normally I always locked the bathroom door, a force of habit. I looked at the keyhole and saw, to my surprise, that it was open. I really had changed.

“Sure, it’s open.” The door opened and closed as AJ slipped into the warm bathroom and locked the door.

“We didn’t spend much time together in the last few weeks, and I thought this would be a good opportunity,” she said as she came over towards the tub and leaned on the rim.

“I know… It’s just…” I pointed at the ship around us. “All of this, you know?” She nodded and placed her Stetson next to my necklace. “It’ just so much.”

“I know, Sugarcube. I can see that when I look at you.” She got her hairband out from her mane and let the golden threads fall around her body. I had seen her quite often like this, but I couldn’t get enough of it. AJ was a pragmatist, functional over aesthetics, but I had to admit that she was even more beautiful like this. She followed my lead and slowly entered one leg after another in the warm water, only that the tub wasn’t made for holding two ponies at a time. AJ tried to sit down on the opposite side, but I grabbed her and pulled her in an embrace, her back against my belly while my hoof wandered over hers.

“Thank you for being there for me, babe.” She had actually prohibited me from calling her that, as she hated nicknames like that. Still, despite her hard demeanour, she was still a mare, and mares loved to be called pet names from the ones they loved. I leaned my head over her shoulder as we nuzzled each other.

“I told you not to call me that.” I couldn’t hold back a grin that she obviously noticed. Before she could say anything else, I placed a kiss on her neck and then some more.

“You know, I can’t wait to be back home.” Home… Equestria. The small farm at the edge of Ponyville. “To trot with you over the wide fields every day. Picnics at sundown and far away from all of this.” I leaned further forward until our lips could meet. First it was just a kiss, but then I felt her tongue pressing against my lips, and I opened mine greedily. A small fight for power started between our mouths and took a good while until we broke the kiss to breathe deeply.

AJ took the opportunity to turn around so that she was sitting on my hind legs and her eyes could meet mine. Her front hooves wandered over my shoulder, and I could see her long blond mane floating on the water behind her. Our wet coats stuck together and rubbed against each other as we then shared another kiss. A well-known pressure was building up between my legs. “AJ...” I was able to moan between two kisses as I leaned back against the tub to better support the two of us.

Instead of an answer, AJ shifted her position a little on top of me, and we both let a deep moan of pleasure a short moment later. Slowly, we started to move in the tub, water splashing over the rim and on the wooden floor around us. The floor was soon as wet as our coats that rubbed together in all the right places. Our lips were kept sealed together as we moved faster and faster, and even more water found its way to the floor. Soon there wasn’t enough water left in the tub to even make good use of the drain. Without the lift of the water, it was difficult to hold us both in this unusual position, especially because AJ was throwing her weight in the other direction.

I gently laid her down on her back, into the small puddle that used to be an entire tub of water. This time it was me who could only grin as she bit her lip suddenly. She had held it back as long as she could, knowing the walls weren’t thick.

With the new grip my front hooves had on the bottom of the tub, I continued where I left off before I had to lay her down. With each thrust, her moans got louder, but I was soon at my limit. With a grunt, I got in a few last thrusts before I was locked in my position deep within the mare I loved.

After AJ and I had caught our breath, we added more water and sat down again in the position in which we had at the beginning. My back pressed against the inner wall of the tub, with her ​​resting in my embrace. I hadn’t felt this satisfied since several days ago.

"You look a lot better now, sugarcube." The lie was so bad that I had to laugh. We looked as if we both had just climbed out of a marsh. Our fur was twisted in the wildest directions and knotted, and our manes and tails looked more like a mop.

"Even though I'm a little exhausted, I'm fine." The fresh warm water especially did me good. Without this, it was ​​a little cold since the ship had no heating. "If I knew you were going to come with me to my bath, I would’ve taken one sooner."

"I thought you could use some cheering up. You looked so down." I could start getting used to this sort of solace.

"What? I’m okay. We’ll all have this behind us and we can return. After all, it is my fault..." I tried to smear on my best grin, but the jab in my ribs brought me out of my little high.

"What's wrong with you?" She pushed away slightly and leaned over the edge of the tub before she looked up at me. "This is your old home. I would be depressed if Manehatten would be reduced to rubble too, but you can’t blame yourself for everything." I didn’t blame myself for everything. "There was no way you could have helped your family."

"What do you know?!” I yelled at her. She had struck a sore spot. "What do you know..." A tear ran down my cheek. It sickened me how quickly I had fallen so quickly into despair despite trying my best to put up a good front. "Not even I know ‘what if’. And you know what? This ‘what if’ brought me in this situation in the first place." I could not hold back. "I let down my family for my own selfish dreams, and now I have to collect the debris! Look out the window; can you see death lurking in the dark? I don’t need to see them to know that they are there." AJ didn’t flinch. "They eat what they can get a hold of: friends, family, strangers, everything! Maybe I could not have done anything, but I would have been with them, not just in remembrance!" I looked at her with blurred sight. I was sure that everyone in the hallway was able to hear my words.

"So you're saying you'd rather have been here and see how all these humans die than come to Equestria?" At first I did not respond, but then I shook my head.

"No, I don’t mean that. I don’t know what I mean..." I sobbed and took a deep breath. "I just don’t..." We were embracing again, this time to give me comfort.

Author's Notes:

And that was my first try at a mature scene, way back in 2012.
Well, was really awkward to read it again.

Thanks to Bjarnulf for translating.
Special thanks to JBL for editing.