Idol

by Casketbase77

Learned

Scootaloo hopped to her hooves in concerned alarm, but before she could ask what was the matter, Flurry Heart arched her back and two very well developed appendages burst from underneath the cape, sending a gust through the bedroom. Scootaloo wasn’t sure what surprised her more, this pair of wings whose combined span was more than twice their owner’s height, or the expression of absolute shame on Flurry Heart’s face having finally revealed her full self.

“I’m sorry,” the princess whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Completely at a loss as to why Flurry Heart looked like she was about to cry, Scootaloo nevertheless wrapped her forelimbs around the foal and pulled her close. “I’m sorry,” Flurry’s shaking voice repeated from the folds of her tutor’s embrace.

“Shhh,” Scootaloo cooed. “You haven’t done anything wrong squirt, I promise. Kinda curious what’s got those big honking feathers of yours all ruffled though.”

Flurry Heart looked up, bewildered. “Wait, you don’t hate me now?”

“Flurry!” Scootaloo gasped. “We just met, and you seem like a real sweet kid. Why in Equestria would you be so worried that I wouldn’t like you, let alone hate you?”

Flurry burrowed her head into Scootaloo’s shoulder and began blathering. “It’s just that I’m a princess with a Cutie Mark and big wings and a pretty face and parents who are always there for me, but you...” she hiccuped anxiously. “You… you didn’t have any of those things at my age and it’s not fair. If I was you, I would hate me. I would hate my guts for all of that.”

“Wait, hold on,” Scootaloo said, barely keeping up. “How did you find out all that stuff about me?”

Flurry swallowed nervously. “Fr-from Aunt Twilight.”

“You had Twilight tell you all about me after she picked me to be your tutor?”

“Huh-uh,” Flurry Heart shook her head vigorously. “I had Aunt Twilight tell me all about you because I wanted you to be my tutor.”

Now there was a surprise. Scootaloo thought Twilight had simply assigned her this position on a whim. Never had she imagined she’d been specifically requested by Flurry Heart herself.

“But why?” Scootaloo asked. “Don’t get me wrong squirt. I’m flattered, really I am, but why me?”

“Are you kidding?!” Flurry Heart broke the hug, galloped over to a desk drawer and pulled out a wrinkled old flyer. “Because you’re awesome! You carried the flag at the Equestria Games when you were even younger than me right now,” Flurry presented the flyer with a faded but visible image of Scootaloo from almost a decade ago when she was the flag bearer for Ponyville. “And you wrote and performed music even before that!”

Scootaloo cringed at the second pamphlet Flurry Heart produced. It showed Scootaloo and her friends in the gaudy glam rock outfits they wore during a long ago school talent show. She quietly thanked Faust that Flurry hadn’t been born at the time of the performance; their singing had been so bad it very well could’ve been heard anywhere in Equestria. “And then there was the time you caught that infamous Apploosa outlaw, and that other time where you did a rocket stunt with the Washouts and that other time where you organized a camp for blank flank foals…”

“Hey, settle down squirt. I think you have a kind of inflated idea of me.”

A look of defiant shock passed over Flurry Heart’s face. She looked like she’d just been told blasphemy.

“N...no!” she declared. “No! You don't see it all from the outside, so you… okay, look! Look at this!” Flurry Heart’s horn glowed and she levitated a pressed and preserved newspaper clipping over to let it fall in Scootaloo’s lap.

It was a massive group photo in Ponyville central square, with a young Scootaloo herself in the center.

“Oh my gosh,” she breathed. “This is...”

Scootaloo remembered the time her parents were going to relocate her out of Ponyville to live with them. As a last ditch effort to dissuade the move, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle organized the entire town to come out in support of keeping the Cutie Mark Crusaders together. ‘Scootaloo Day’, they’d called it. And sure, the event made the local newspaper (an archived copy of which was now sitting in her lap), but all the hurrah was summarily forgotten afterwards.

At least, Scootaloo thought it had been forgotten.

“You got a whole parade because you did so many amazing things that ponies from all over showed up because you touched their lives, and I… I…” the babbled praise coming from Flurry Heart’s mouth reached its zenith before the filly completely deflated.

“Compared to you, I’m...” she finally fell silent.

Flurry’s tired eyes were fixed longingly on the discarded Crusader Cape on the ground, but it was her wings that drew Scootaloo’s attention. The huge things were reflexively shaking with agitation, just like Scootaloo’s had done when the Crystal Guard had made her feel like a sham of a pony. Like an empty, undeserving product of nepotism.

And Scootaloo realized that an empty, undeserving product of nepotism was what Flurry Heart felt like all the time.

After all, why wouldn’t she? Flurry Heart’s life was a cushy one, but not because she’d worked hard or earned it. Cadence and Shining Armor did love her unconditionally. Twilight was able to send her any tutor she asked for. Not that she needed a support network in the first place; Everypony in Equestria knew Flurry was a prodigy spawned by prodigies. She was the only natural-born alicorn on record, an instinctively talented mage who’d hit the ground running and got her Cutie Mark delivered to her practically gift wrapped.

In her short life, Flurry Heart had visited every mountaintop without ever experiencing the thrill of a climb. And even if she wasn’t old enough to put that regret into words, she clearly felt its emptiness in her gut.

Scootaloo understood completely why this cloistered kid collected and fixated on the old papers strewn about the floor. Papers detailing the life of a crippled Pegasus who’d made a mare of herself from nothing. Yes, Scootaloo grasped why someone like Flurry Heart would feel so inspired but at the same time so ashamed stacked up next to someone like her.

And Scootaloo also understood, probably even more than Flurry herself, what type of ‘tutoring’ this sheltered foal was craving: Tough Love.

“Flurry Heart!” Scootaloo scolded in her best Spitfire impression as she ambled over to the Crusader Cape lying in a heap in the floor. “Is this any way for an aspiring Cutie Mark Crusader to treat their uniform?!”

Flurry blinked uncomprehendingly. “A what now?”

“Don’t ‘what now’ me, missy! Your uniform is on the carpet collecting more dust and lint by the second. Move, move, move!”

Scrambling as fast as she could, the junior princess made it to her homemade cape and scooped it up using one of her oversized wings. Then she looked up at Scootaloo, openly hungry for approval. Those big doughy eyes were almost enough to make Scootaloo break character, but she kept it together.

“Affix it ‘round your neck,” she commanded. Her order was clumsily obeyed.

“Sit!”

Flurry Heart’s rump hit the rug instantly, wings pooled limply on either side of it.

“Hmph.” Scootaloo strutted circles around her cadet, making sure the steps she took were as clownish and exaggerated as possible. Catching on to the game, Flurry Heart pinched her lips tight to keep excited giggles from escaping.

“Don’t you laugh at me, yearling!” Scootaloo tripped over her next words as she worked to reword Cadence’s earlier wisdom into drill-sergeant vernacular. “The othe-ahem!- The other Crystal Ponies might think you’re Hot Manure, but when you’re here with me, your titles mean nothing. Ya hear that? You’re a Parasprite stuck to the bottom of my horseshoe. Still think you’re Cutie Mark Crusader material??”

Once Flurry realized the question wasn’t rhetorical, she nodded resolutely.

“Speak!” Scootaloo demanded.

“I’m Cutie Mark Crusader material, ma’am! I am, I am!”

“Ha!” Scootaloo stopped and bore down over Flurry Heart with all the affected swagger she could muster. “You’ve got a long climb ahead of you, missy!”

“I do?” Flurry’s excitement was palpable.

“You do. It’s gonna take hard work and guts if you wanna get to my level.” Flurry Heart’s eyes grew wider and more dazzled as Scootaloo continued. “You’re gonna fail, fall down, get dirty, and chip your little pedicured hooves on this very long upcoming journey to being worthy of that mark on your flank. Are you prepared to struggle to earn your right to be called a Cutie Mark Crusader?”

“Yes. Oh my gosh, yes I am.”

“I said: Are. You. Prepared. To earn your title of Cutie Mark Crusader?!”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am!”

“Then,” Scootaloo softened back to her regular tone of voice. “Spread those wings and give me a winning smile, squirt.”

Flurry Heart obeyed. She closed her eyes and beamed brightly as her remiges and primaries fanned out behind her like rays from the sun.

To be teased and jostled like any other filly felt more freeing than Flurry could have ever imagined. And for her long-awaited hero to be the one who gave this release to her? Flurry had no words. She simply wanted to keep basking in the moment.

Scootaloo gave a melancholic sigh and glanced down at her own wings. What was she? A parasite caught in a Crystal Guard’s stare? A welcome stranger, as seen by Cadence? Or a fabled hero reflected in the bright, hopeful eyes of Flurry Heart? Scootaloo hoped it was the last one. But even if it wasn’t, well, the cape around Flurry’s neck was proof that anypony could forge a new path whenever they wanted. All they needed was encouragement from a friend.

“Alright squirt, good session. I think that’ll do for today.”

Author's Note:

Cinnamon and sugary and softly spoken lies.

We never know quite how we look through other ponies' eyes.

---

SEQUEL FIC!

EThe Tale of Maredusa

• MLP: FiM
• Thriller

Flurry Heart has requested a very unusual bedtime story. Shining Armor senses something is up, but he also knows that children occasionally come across feelings they don't have words for yet. Books can supply those words.

• Shining Armor
• Flurry Heart

Casketbase77 · 4.7k words  ·  108  0 · 1.7k views

Comments

[Ice Star]

You're really good at churning out unusual little thought-pieces. Seeing serious picture-prompted stories and their unusual inspiration is nice stuff, especially with duos I wouldn't have thought of before. Keep up the good work!

[Nitro Indigo]

What does Flurry Heart's cutie mark mean? Isn't that why Scootaloo went there in the first place?

I like how Scootaloo has a similar speech pattern to her dad.

[Eden]

This is... wonderful

[Nailah]

Awwh. So cute. And very fitting. Great job! <3

[Siras-chi]

Two things. First, cute story. Loved the interactions between two characters who would other wise have no way to interact.

Second, that song is going to be stuck in my head all day now, thank you very much.

[Thought Prism]

An excellent character piece, capturing an element of Flurry Heart I'd never considered. Definitely a favorite.

[Kichi]

Very good and very cute... Too bad it's a little short... I for one could like to see Flurry reaction as Scootaloo began to tell her stories of things she did to impress her big sister

[Yordna]

This is a fascinating and very realistic take on Flurry Heart. Feeling ashamed because everything was handed to her on a silver platter, while over in Ponyville was a crippled from birth pegasus who achieved incredible things through sheer hard work when the whole universe said she couldn't. It's a delightful paid-forward irony that Scootaloo ended up being an idol herself after idolizing something she couldn't be for so long.

Inspiring to Flurry, and inspiring to us. Well done. Flurry sure is self-aware for a kid her age.

Flurry doesn't like her cushy life, but, well, a cushy life for kids is something that is paid forward, not earned by the kids. Your parents give you a cushy, sweet childhood, and then, when you have your own kids, you give the same childhood to them. And so on.

[Casketbase77]

10226922

Pretty much, friendo. I wanted this to be as much Flurry’s story as it was Scootaloo’s, so naturally they ended up being the support the other needed to rediscover a little bit of self worth. Like a lot of my Snippet Series entries, Idol is about two ponies being in the same place at the right time.

[Nagaina]

I really liked the end of the story, but you may want to consider changing it all to one chapter. Alone the second chapter is very telly.

[Bandy]

I was initially worried this story would be too big for its short word count, but I was totally wrong. You've articulated a neat niche of suburban child psychology here, and the piece's brevity makes it really easy to parse out the point and reflect on it.

Thanks for sharing!

[1Bluefur]

Oh I adore this. I smiled the whole time like a mad pony . Excellent work! I actually studied child psych and want to work with children as a therapist, so I can say with confidence that your characterization of Flurry is excellent! Plus I love how you interpreted Scootaloo as an adult.

Everything is just great! Great work!

[JuJoMoZu]

Hello there! Guy from the Sub Reddit here!
Gotta say, I had my doubts, as when you claimed this was a pretty heartwarming tale, I was afraid you were just tooting your own horn. But in reallity, you delivered! I´m very surprised how you churned out a fascinating tale out of a character I didn´t think much of (Flurry Heart) And gave her doubts based off of what little information we have of her. You then proceeded to pair her up with a character I already really like and am fond of (Scoot) and weave a fascinating little character tale that manages to make sense and, indeed, turns out to be really heartwarming.
It´s nice to see that Scootaloo goes on to be somebody else´s Rainbow Dash!

[resonance]

God damn this has to be the most heartfelt depiction of flurry I've ever read.

I'm not a fan of either character, but this was so authentic I had to add it to my favorites.

[BirdsBooksBrownies]

A sweet story, which I would absolutely not mind seeing expanded at some point.

Flurry Heart was definitely not well developed in the show, she pretty much existed solely for profits and to wrap up the "Wedding arc". So I am always interested when I see someone giving her a personality. Who does she become in the future? a spoiled brat? a noble warrior-princess? does she resent her birth-rights?

[Comma Typer]

I think this is a good fic, and along with what other people have said here, I believe one of the good things about this fic is its structure.

It's two chapters, but they're mirror copies of each other. The first chapter raises the questions and the doubts (concerns about nepotism from Scootaloo, having connections here and there and being pushed to the top, surface-level interactions and assumptions exchanged between Scoots and Flurry, and the hope for a lesson Cadance was expecting), while the second one quickly answers those questions and doubts (Flurry also has concerns about nepotism and being pushed to the top, surface-level interactions give way to their real selves, and a lesson then given). That you hook readers into the second chapter with Flurry Heart almost inexplicably (though you do foreshadow this, like, five seconds before it with an emphasis on that slight encouragement) cursing and talking about "hiding them"... for a short story such as this, making the reader hungry for more with the decision to split it into two chapters (with that mirror-copy mention earlier) is pretty nice.

There's also something Yordna pointed out that I missed, and that's the title: Idol. I did get Flurry idolizing Scootaloo, but there's a second level to it when I remember that Scootaloo's been idolizing Rainbow Dash... an expert Wonderbolt ace that Scootaloo just couldn't be. So, to paraphrase Yordna, it's thought-provoking to see how Scootaloo deals with idolatry when it's directed at her, much more so when it's implied that Scootaloo's probably got it rougher growing up than her own idol.

Anyway, there's not much else to say for me here now. This is a great fic with an even greater dynamic. Thank you for it!

[Ghost Mike]

An oddball ghost happened across your fic and read it. Have a review!