AH! I'm so sorry for the wait and for this terrible short chapter you get after all the months!
Flutter Night: Thanks a lot And yeah, it's pretty sad. cx
Guest: Yup...
The Mystery or piesareawesome: Here you go!
ShiningShadow1965: You'll know soon enough!
hunter: We'll get to that soon.
Rarity01: Woah, indeed.
Hope you enjoy this chapter! Review, please! :D
Chapter 22: To Blame or Not to Blame
"Hi, Scootaloo! Did I do the plan right?" Sunny's eager voice jolted her into reality and she turned to look at her friend with gloomy eyes.
"...Yeah, whatever," Scootaloo muttered ungraciously.
"What's wrong? Did I mess up? Did something happen?" She looked up and gazed at the filly's concerned blue eyes. She soon found herself staring at those blue eyes. And she knew...those large eyes were the eyes that cared.
"Nah. It's just that, uh...Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom kinda overheard and now they're pretty much furious at me," Scootaloo confessed, shoving a hoof in her ragged purple mane.
Sunny Shine's expression told it all. Her panic-stricken face, her eyes filling with immediate guilt...She blamed herself! Scoots thought, alarmed.
"Hey...don't be sad, Sunny. It wasn't your fault," Scootaloo tried her best to comfort the young pony. Either she was a very bad comforter, or Sunny was the most gloomy pony in the world right now, she couldn't tell. Probably both.
"Yeah it was," she snapped at her. "Can't you see it's my fault? If I had spoken quieter, maybe they wouldn't have heard me!" She stamped her hoof, sending up a cloud of dust that left her coughing.
"That's ridiculous," Scootaloo scoffed.
"You're just saying that," Sunny murmured glumly. Scootaloo rolled her eyes.
"I'm not. If anything, it's my fault. If I had made a better plan, maybe this wouldn't have come out so bad!" she retorted sharply.
Sunny released a soft giggle. "Now you're being ridiculous."
"We both are," Scoots admitted.
"But really, Scoots...how do we fix this? I think we've both done enough damage beyond repair by now. Every time we try to mend things, we just destroy it further," Sunny Shine spoke quietly, sounding a thousand years old.
Scootaloo stayed silent.
"I don't know, Sunny. I really don't know."
"Apple Bloom?" Sweetie Belle asked her friend, who was pacing restlessly on her rug. The absorbed filly did not answer and continued to pace. "Apple Bloom...please answer me."
"What?" She looked up, glaring at her friend.
"...What do we do?"
"Do about what?" she spat. "There's nothing to do about anything! She's not even our friend."
The unicorn flinched at her choice of words. "W - well, yeah, but...maybe we were a bit too harsh on her."
"Maybe she was a bit too harsh on Dark Chocolate," she shot back.
"Maybe there's a good reason for it?" Sweetie suggested lamely.
"She would have told us. Instead, she gave us some stupid excuse about him calling her ugly. Like she would even care!" Apple Bloom fumed.
"But we probably shouldn't have put the blame on her so quickly," she again tried to reason. The bow-bearing filly rolled her eyes.
"Why are you taking her side?" she growled.
"Because...it might not have been her fault," she said feebly.
"But she lied to us," she pointed out.
"It could have been a secret or something..." Sweetie Belle said.
"We're her friends!" Apple Bloom exclaimed.
A silence.
"...oh."