A/N - Psyche! Lol did you all really think I'd be so shallow as to hold off an update over reviews? You guys are too awesome for me to do something like that! (Lol though that doesn't mean you're immune from the occasional prank ;) )

The creature on my left lurched towards me, and I got my shield ready, setting it in front of me just as it attacked. Its claws raked against the sturdy metal and bounced off, knocking me off balance. Its friend came at me from the right, but I rolled out of the way, looking back just in time to see the two crash into each other. I got back up and readied myself for another attack from them. The two shook their heads and glared at me, letting out roars as they charged. I ducked between them and turned, smacking one in the back of the head with the shield.

"Oww Scootaloo! Not so hard!"

I gave my friends a sheepish grin and rubbed the back of my head. "Sorry Applebloom, guess I got carried away…"

Sweetie Belle stomped over to me. "Why do you always get to be the knight while we have to be the monsters?!"

I grinned at my friends. "Because my dad is a knight!" I stuck my tongue out at them.

"That ain't fair! Mah sister's datin' 'im, that means he's just as much mah brother as he is yer dad!"

"Hey, what about me?! I'm not related at all, don't I get to play the knight once in a while?"

Applebloom and I both turned to Sweetie Belle. "NO!"

"Now now girls, what's going on?" We all looked to see Miss Cheerilee walking over to us.

"Scootaloo keeps hogging playing the knight all the time, and won't let anypony else have a turn!"

"That's not true! I let you have a turn last week!"

"That wuz me, and Ah only got ta play fer five minutes b'fore ya wanted it back!"

I was going to say something really smart to Applebloom, but Miss Cheerilee stepped between us. "That's enough girls! It seems to me that if the three of you can't get along and spend equal time playing as the knight, whatever that means, then you shouldn't play this game at all." She gave us that stern look that meant that we were all about to be in big trouble. "Now, you can all either say you're sorry, or you can spend the rest of the afternoon with me, cleaning the classroom."

My ears folded against my head; Miss Cheerilee was right, I had been awfully selfish. "We're sorry…" We all told her at once.

Applebloom and Sweetie Belle turned to head to another part of the playground. "C'mon Scootaloo, let's go see if we c'n get our cutie marks in sp… spe… explorin' caves!"

I waved to them. "You girls go on ahead, I wanna ask Miss Cheerilee something." My friends looked at each other, shrugged, and ran off without me. I turned back to our teacher. "Miss Cheerilee… do you think… do you think my Papa would be ashamed of me for being so selfish?"

I got nervous because she didn't say anything for a long time. Finally, she put her hoof on my shoulder and gave me a sad look. "Scootaloo… why would you even ask that? Your father loves you, of course he's not ashamed of you; he's proud of you, and you should already know that nothing you do, especially something small like your game with your friends, will ever change that."

I sighed and looked at the ground. "I know Miss Cheerilee… it's just… I've been without a family for as long as I can remember… now that I have my Papa, I'm just so scared that I'm gonna lose him too…"

Miss Cheerilee sat down and pulled me into a hug. "Oh, sweetie… I promise you, your Papa will never, ever leave you…"

I looked up, and she was smiling at me, but she still had tears in her eyes. I wrapped my hooves around her and hugged her back. "You really mean that Miss Cheerilee?"

She hugged me tighter. "I Pinkie Promise you Scootaloo…"

"And nopony breaks a Pinkie Promise!" Miss Cheerilee and I both looked around for Pinkie Pie after she shouted, but we couldn't see her anywhere.

Miss Cheerilee gave me one last squeeze and nudged me with her muzzle. "Now, why don't you go play with your friends, recess will be over soon."

Blake

I had managed to dispatch the second of the three monsters, taking my helmet off and ramming one of the decorative winglets into its eye socket while it was still recoiling form the latest headbutt, but Quickhoof and I were now in a fight for our lives as I realized that for each one of these things we killed, the others became stronger and faster. The third was now so fast that it was hard to dodge, and I was sure my armor had several lovely scratches that I was going to have to have Hammer Hoof fix when this was all over. For now, my concern was making sure I actually stayed alive long enough to do that.

"Why is it so fast all of a sudden?!"

Quickhoof dodged a swipe of the thing's claws. "I do not know, the old tales never mentioned this!"

My mind was racing as I struggled to come up with a plan; I had tried writing other words, both on my shield and my gun, in hopes of tricking it into reading them and allowing us to at least hurt it for more than a minute, but whenever I did, it would shield its eyes.

A plan started to form in my head as a realization dawned on me. "Hey Quickhoof, I have an idea!" I ducked under another swipe of the creature's surprisingly sharp claws, feeling them graze my helmet as I did. "I'm going to distract it with another word, you get behind it and try to restrain it while it's got its eyes covered!"

The creature made to swipe at me again, but I brought my shield to bear, which still had 'shield' written on it with my light spell. The creature averted its eyes at the last second as I had planned, and a moment later, Quickhoof was on the thing's back, trying to get a grip on its arms.

He managed to wrap his hooves around its shoulders, locking its arms up and out of the way and giving me a clear shot to force it to read the word on my shield. I brought my shield to bear, but the instant my arm started moving, so too did the creature, turning around and charging at me in reverse. "Oh… That's just cheating!"

I jumped out of the way, allowing the thing to careen past me and towards the wall that had been behind me. As it went past, it lashed out with its claws, landing a lucky blow to my left shoulder joint. This was one of the weakest spots on my armor as that joint needed the most flexibility, which made it almost too easy for the razor-like claws to penetrate the chainmail that protected it. I was glad that I was wearing such a magnificent suit though; if the force of the impact was anything to go by, a regular suit of armor would have torn through like butter and I would likely be minus an arm.

Quickhoof let out a grunting shout as he collided with the wall behind me. I reached up and grasped my shoulder, feeling the warm, sticky wetness of blood oozing out from the fortunately shallow wound. I knew that we were going to need to stop after this fight to bandage our wounds and rest, or we'd never make it through the rest of the temple.

I saw Quickhoof slump to the ground, breathing heavily, and the monster loomed over him. Before it even had a chance to draw a claw back, I used my levitation spell to send my shield out, ramming it into the back of its head and earning its attention and its ire. It bellowed and glared at me, and I swiveled my shield around from behind it, not giving it a chance to avert its eyes. It froze in place as the shield and the word hovered in front of its face.

The creature bellowed again as it was forced to finally read the word scrawled in light across the front of the shield. I sent a command to pull the shield back to me, but the creature had grabbed it, bellowing in anger as it stomped over to me, gaining speed with every step. I tried again, but couldn't wrest the shield from its grasp.

I stood up and jumped out of the way again as the creature neared, but it lashed out with the shield, the thick metal impacting my upper back and head, sending me sprawling to the ground. The creature then threw the shield away and wrapped an icy, clawed hand around my neck, picking me up from the ground until my feet were dangling off the floor, and drew its other claw back, ready to disembowel me. I closed my eyes reflexively and shut off my aurasight spell, helpless in my battered, fatigued state against this final monster, and for all I knew, the final test of the temple itself. I'm sorry girls… I wasn't strong enough…

Derpy

I trotted up the stairs and headed down the long hall to the fillies' bedroom. I opened the door as quietly as I could and peeked in, checking to make sure the pile of blankets on my little sister's bed was still moving. The blankets stirred and a tiny horn poked out, followed by a blond mane and big, golden eyes that were half-closed and all crusty. "H-hey big sis… what's up?"

I trotted over to her bed and put a hoof to her forehead, which was still burning up. "I just wanted to check on my favorite sister, to see if you were feeling any better."

She snuggled back into her blankets and started drifting back to sleep. "'M fine sis… just sleepy…"

I set the fresh glass of ice water I had been carrying on her nightstand and grabbed the old one, then backed out of the room as quietly as my clumsy hooves would let me, only bumping my rump on the doorframe twice as I went. I could feel my heart racing in my chest; I had never seen Dinky this sick before, and it made me really scared, almost as scared as the day I came home from school and mom and dad were gone.

That was a really scary day too. I came home from school, humming a little tune I made up in my head, all happy that only one colt had picked on me. When I opened the door and called for mom and dad to let them know I was here, no one answered. I didn't think too much of it though, I figured maybe they'd gone out for lunch like they did sometimes. I went upstairs to see if I could find Dinky's foalsitter, but there was nopony there. I even searched the whole house, under the beds and in the laundry piles and everything, but me and Dinky were the only two ponies here. I started to get real scared; mom and dad never left the house without somepony to watch Dinky…

Dinky started crying, so I carried her into the kitchen to make her a bottle of formula. I set the pot of water on the stovetop and put Dinky's bottle in it to warm up. I had been foalsitting my baby sister on the weekends since she first came home. At first I didn't know what to do, but mom taught me, and I did my best to be a good big sister and learn how to take care of her.

While I was waiting for her formula to heat up, my loopy eye started wandering around the kitchen. I noticed something folded up on the counter; at first, I thought it was a napkin, but then I noticed it had writing on it. I picked it up and saw that it was addressed to me. I opened the paper and saw that there was more writing on the inside, and it all looked like it was in my mom's hoofwriting. There were little dark circles all over the paper, and her writing was smudged and runny in places.

Dear Derpy,

I want you to know that I will always love you. Your father… no, that's not right, it's not all his fault… We both realized that we can't handle raising you and your sister. We know you're still a young filly, but I believe you are more than capable of taking care of yourself and little sister now. I hope you can forgive us someday for leaving you alone like this…

Love you always,

Mom

I felt hot, stinging tears rolling down my cheeks and making new dark spots on the paper the whole time I was reading; I didn't understand, why would mom and dad just leave us like that? From the sound of the note, they weren't ever going to come back, but why would they just abandon us? Was it something I did? Was it because of my eyes? I felt really weak all of a sudden, and slumped to the floor, and it felt like I would never be able to get back up again.

Dinky started crying in her chair, and I knew I had to do something; my little sister was my responsibility now, and I wasn't going to abandon her. I managed to shakily get to my hooves and walk over to the pot with the formula bottle. I took the bottle out of the pot and squirted a little bit on my wrist to make sure it wasn't too hot.

When I was sure it was safe, I gave little Dinky the bottle, and she grabbed it out of my hooves and started drinking. I wanted to be angry at her for looking so content when our parents had just left us, but I knew she didn't understand. I told myself that she couldn't know the truth; that she had to think mom and dad would come back to us someday, even though I knew it was a great big lie.

I made myself stop remembering that day; my heart always hurt when I thought about it, and right now I needed to be strong so I could take care of Dinky. I realized she hadn't eaten all day, so I started thinking about what to give a sick pony to eat. Dandelion soup always made me feel better, but it was too late in the year for dandelions. I didn't know how to make too many things, but I knew most of them wouldn't be good for her right now.

I did know a mare who might be able to help me though, and her cottage wasn't too far from our house. I walked up to the door and pulled it open, ready to head off to Fluttershy's and see if she could help me make some food for Dinky. I stopped when I saw Rainbow Dash on the other side of the door with a really sad look on her face.

"Hiya Rainbow Dash! If you're looking for Blake, he's not back yet." She looked up at me and her eyes were really angry for some reason.

"Don't you get it?! Blake abandoned us! He's never ever coming back again! The only reason I'm even here is to see if Scootaloo wants to come live with me!"

I took a step back, Rainbow Dash scared me and I felt my heart hurting again. "He'll be back… it's not like he went alone, Applejack and Twilight-"

She slammed a hoof against the doorframe and I took another step back; she was really scaring me now, I was afraid she might try to hurt me. "Blake isn't coming back you idiot! Any day now, AJ and Twilight will come walking out of that forest with their heads hanging and not a human to be seen! Face it Derpy, your lover-colt abandoned all the ponies he claimed to care about, and no matter how much you want to change it, he's never coming back!"

Somepony gasped behind Dash, and I looked past her to see Scootaloo standing on her little scooter on the path to the house, tears streaming down her face. Dash looked back too, but before we could say anything, Scootaloo took off. My heart hurt so bad I couldn't stand it, and I glared at Rainbow Dash. "You! Go to Fluttershy's, ask her to look after Dinky, I'm going to find Scootaloo!"

Dash's eyes were wide and her ears were pinned to her head, but she nodded. I spread my wings and took off; maybe it was true when ponies called me a klutz, but Scootaloo needed me, and I wasn't going to let my klutziness stop me from being there for her.

I flew off in the direction I saw her go, but I didn't see her anywhere. Applejack's orchard was up ahead of me, so I swooped down and landed since I knew I'd never be able to see her from above if she'd gone in there. I remembered Dinky telling me about Applejack's little sister having a clubhouse somewhere in there where she and Scootaloo went sometimes, but I couldn't remember where she said it was.

I started walking towards the orchard and looked around, hoping it would be easy to see, but all the trees made seeing much of anything really hard. "Scootaloo! Come back! It's Derpy, I just want to talk!" I stopped and listened, but all I could hear was the wind rustling through the brown leaves of the trees.

I walked further in and kept calling out to her, but I never got a response. I wasn't worried about getting lost; after all, I could just fly back up above the trees and look for our house. It was easy enough to spot after all, the place was like a mansion! "If'n y'all're lookin' fer Scootaloo, she went that way, up towards the Cutie Mark Crusader's clubhouse." I nearly jumped out of my fur when the stallion spoke, but I steadied myself and looked over to see Applejack's big brother Big Mac pointing off into the orchard.

"Th-thanks Big M-Mac…" I'd never tell Blake, but I used to have a huge crush on Big Mac when I was still a filly.

I trotted off in the direction the big hunk of a stallion… pointed me… No Derpy! Now's not the time for that, Scootaloo needs me! Besides, what would Blake think?!

The orchard was really thick here, and I knew I'd never spot her if she was anywhere around here. All of a sudden, the trees stopped, and I saw a big clearing up ahead of me. I was about to jump for joy when I realized that the Apple family's farmhouse was in front of me, not some little clubhouse.

I groaned and turned around, and all I could see was red. "Got lost, didn't ya?" I looked up with my good eye to see a soft smile on Big Mac's face while my loopy eye was watching a cloud pass by. I nodded sheepishly and the big stallion chuckled. "Come on, Ah'll show ya where it is…"

I followed him through what felt like a whole forest of trees, and I was starting to feel really anxious because I couldn't really see the sky; us pegasuses don't like it when we can't see the sky after all. Finally, all the trees opened up and I saw another small tree with a little house sitting on it in the middle of a field. I turned around to thank Big Mac, but he was already gone. "Whoa… just like Batmare…"

I turned around and started creeping up to the clubhouse, hoping I wouldn't scare Scootaloo if she was in there. I knew she had to be when I saw her awesome little scooter sitting on its side by a ramp that led up to the house. My ears perked up and I heard crying from inside the little house. I hopped up on my hind legs and peeked inside; Scootaloo was curled up in a corner, wrapped in a big, red blanket with gold on one side.

I hopped back down and flew over to the top of the ramp, but I almost tripped over my own hooves as I landed… I'm pretty clumsy like that. I opened the small door and peeked inside; Scootaloo hadn't budged from the corner, or from under her blanket. I walked up to her slowly, putting one hoof in front of the other as quietly as I could. "Scootaloo, it's me, Derpy…" Her little ears perked up when I said something.

"Go away Derpy! I don't want to talk to you right now!" She sniffled and buried herself deeper into her blanket.

I sat down next to her, a little harder than I meant to, since I shook the clubhouse a little. "Scootaloo… Rainbow Dash was just upset… she didn't mean any of that stuff she said about Blake…"

She sniffled and looked up at me. "How would you know!? What would you even know about losing a family?!"

I felt my heart hurt again. I scooted closer and pulled her in close. "I know plenty about losing family… my mom and dad left me and Dinky all alone when I was still small. They didn't send us to an orphanage or anything, they just… left one day…"

Scootaloo sniffed and looked up at me. "R-really?"

I nodded. "Yeah… I was really sad for a long time; Dinky was too small to remember, but they left a note saying they were never coming back and everything."

I felt her cuddle closer to me. "S-so… how do you know Papa's really coming back then? Rainbow Dash was really mad at him…"

I reached a hoof down and stroked her purple mane. "Because I know him Scootaloo, he's been through the same kind of pain you and I have, so he would never do something to make us hurt again. Rainbow Dash was just angry, that's all; Blake didn't give anypony much warning before he left, so I think she was just mad she didn't get to go with him or say goodbye. I know he's coming back though; he wouldn't have taken Applejack and Twilight with him if he didn't plan on coming back, now would he?"

She shook her little head and sniffled, wiping her snout with a hoof. "N-no… but… I still miss him…"

I wrapped my other hoof around her, and I felt a warm fuzziness in my heart, a fuzziness I usually only felt when Dinky was giving me a great big hug. "I know Scootaloo, I miss him too. We just have to be patient though, and we'll all get to see him again in a few days. And if he finds that weird flower thing, he'll be able to see us too."

She climbed out of the red and gold blanket and stretched. "Can we go home now? I want to make something for Papa for when he gets home."

The two of us walked outside into the cool evening air, and I shivered; I didn't like the cold, and I didn't bring a scarf or anything to keep me warm. I had a nice scarf at home that Rarity had made me for my birthday, even though she was a little late getting it to me, but I couldn't use it if it was at home. "Come on, let's hurry; it's way too cold out here!"

Scootaloo hopped on her scooter, put her cool little helmet on, and started buzzing her little wings. I started trotting next to her, but she was going faster and faster, and I had to gallop as fast as I could just to keep up with her.

It didn't take long for us to get home, and when we did, Scootaloo parked her scooter under the porch and trotted up to the door next to me. I opened the door and almost jumped as Fluttershy yelped on the other side. "Oh um… hello Derpy… I just finished checking on Dinky like you asked… and it seems she just has the flu… just, um give her some soup to eat and make sure she drinks plenty of fluids and stays warm and she should be just fine."

I smiled. "Thanks Fluttershy, you're a lifesaver!" She smiled back at me and trotted past, waving goodbye to us as she flew off back to her cottage.

My heart started hurting again while I watched her go, and all of a sudden, all I could think about was Blake.