The skies of Ponyville rumble like an upset stomach; the clouds’ bellies look black and bloated as they pour their guts groundwards.

There’s a storm coming out of the Everfree. An unscheduled storm. The streets of Ponyville are empty, save for a few straggling earth ponies giving the garden trees a final, good-luck prune.

Scootaloo’s jaw tightens, and a momentary frown flashes across her forehead. The air outside the cottage she stands in’s murky under a light drizzle, and the wind occasionally spits globules of rainwater onto her coat, leaving the fur damp and pressed down in shining patches. The half-door against her chest protects her lower half from the worst of it. She can remember when it would’ve protected all of her.

She turns back inside; if the world outside is wet, then it is far too dry inside.

The cottage is abandoned, and has been so for quite some time. Cobwebs decorate the corners of the ceiling, and the stink of decaying feed permeates everything. The cottage is, at least, neat and tidy; its owner had not left in a hurry, and there’s not many left who’d dare disturb this place. Not many who’d think they’d have the right.

Scootloo’s wings bristle. A discarded toy wheezes out mournfully as she steps on it. Her hoof pulls back, and then kicks the thing into the corner, its landing disturbing the dust up into clouds. She doesn’t stop walking, instead continuing her aimless pacing round the cottage’s dark innards. Floorboards creak underhoof as she passes, as if the house itself is scolding her for the intrusion.

Scootaloo pauses, licks her lips and then flicks a look over to the doorway. It’s lighter outside than it is in, though the darkening sky is quickly changing that. Her jaw tightens again, and then she paces firmly towards it, barging the lower half open and then taking to the sky.

The Library’s window refuses to open at first, the mechanism having long since seized over from rust. Luckily, the branches above her head are thick and leafy, providing more than ample protection against the rain’s worst. Scootaloo still drips as she moves, the brief flight having soaked her thoroughly.

Eventually, the window’s latch gives. Seconds later, and Scootaloo’s inside the abandoned upper parts of the Library, the lower half having been too integral to daily usage for even respect to dissuade. She shakes herself out, spraying muddy water, twigs and broken leaves around the place.

The library is just as dusty, just as abandoned.

There are places where you live and places where your heart is: places where you can barely move for all the ghosts thronging round you. She closes her eyes, and on a second skin somewhere beneath her rain-drenched first, feels again the kiss of a summer’s day; the light teasing of a midday’s breeze; the clench of young muscles, tired from running, and the thunderous thumping of a worn-out heart.

Sometimes, I think the scariest thing in the world is the promise that tommorow ain’t the same as today. That time moves on: that things change. That what you have right now will eventually be lost, never to return.

The world wobbles on a knife’s edge, and then spins on.