New Fate notes, how to help Scootaloo fly
I have a story on Ao3 that's basically a show rewrite of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, starting from like Season 5 and centered around Nova Sortis, the reincarnation of Sombra as a foal. He's ever-so-slightly older than the Cutie Mark Crusaders and was written looong before Sombra's canon reappearance. You can read all about it Here but this post is about Scootaloo and her capacity to fly.
At some point in Chapter 2, Nova realizes that Scootaloo's inability to fly is affecting her mental health more than he thought and decides to find a way to help her. I don't mention it much in the fic because it's more of a summary than anything, but I do have a bit of a timeline figured out for how Nova researches and experiments and what dead ends he inevitably finds.
Note: I had posted this to Ao3 as well but decided to delete it there and post here instead.
First thing's first, Nova starts looking for existing flight spells.
After asking Twilight if she already knew of any flight spells, she pointed him toward the butterfly wing spell she had used on Rarity before. They extended from Scootaloo’s wings, attached to them, but shattered when Scootaloo tried to flap since she’s too used to “buzzing” her wings at high speed. Nova has to rest before trying again and Scootaloo thinks this might not be the best solution if the wings are too frail. They try again and Scootaloo very carefully flaps and succeeds in getting off the ground but they disintegrate when she tries to do much more than flutter in place. It definitely wasn’t the solution they needed but it was at least a proof of concept; Scootaloo could absolutely fly if they find (or make) the right spell.
He tries to reduce Scootaloo’s weight to see if that might help, studying things like clouds and helium. This doesn’t help since normal Pegasus ponies can’t be supported by the air displacement of “normal” sized wings anyways, meaning something else is making them flight-worthy.
For practical, everyday use, Scootaloo would need wings made of something sturdier than “gossamer and morning dew” but at least they had a starting place. After picking apart the spell and finding out how the physicality of the wings came to be, he decided to try using a Pegasus feather as a base for the magic to copy. He needed a test subject, one that didn’t naturally have wings to get in the way of the spell, and Rainbow Dash volunteers Applejack; then they could have another Iron Pony Competition where AJ couldn’t complain that Rainbow had an advantage. AJ is concerned they’d be permanent but Nova assures that the wings will only have so much magic stored in them and, once it runs out, the wings should vanish on their own. Besides, it’s for a good cause. The spell works, AJ has feathered wings, and they have their competition (which could be whole nother episode's worth of story lol) while Nova rests. The wings’ magic is basically all used up by the end of the competition and Nova is rested enough to try it on Scootaloo. Unfortunately, since they’re made out of something more physical than the butterfly wings, Scootaloo gains a second pair of feathered wings and they all get in each others' way, preventing flight. The wings will have to be made of magic so that they can attach to Scootaloo’s own wings and extend from them like the butterfly wings did.
After Starlight starts living at the castle, Nova asks her about how she flew herself around; perhaps he could use it in conjunction with another spell for Scootaloo. It’s a modified levitation spell; usually, the mass of the levitated object pushes down on the magic’s origin point, adding to the origin’s mass. Normally, this would mean that if you tried to levitate yourself, your own weight would feed back on the tether, making the caster double their own weight, which would keep increasing ad infinitum. Starlight’s spell bypasses this tether by combining it with a weightless spell, making her body weightless before sort of pushing her body around using the levitation spell. While clever, and something Nova decides to learn for himself, it wouldn’t really be a good simulation of real flight, so the project is shelved.
Eventually, Nova is able to isolate the part of the Butterfly wing spell that extends the flight magic from the pony’s body; the flight magic was attached to the target first, then extended into a magic construct that looked like Butterfly wings, or feathered ones with Nova's modification. Scootaloo already had flight magic so they could skip the harder part of the spell and focus on extending her natural flight magic into a magic construct that could hold up to vigorous use. After dialing in how far the flight magic needed to be extended and how much magic would have to go into the construct to make it thin and flexible enough to emulate real flight, Nova is able to cast a spell to give Scootaloo flight capable wings.
With the proof of concept achieved, the next step was to make the spell more permanent, since it would only last a few hours at most, and then find a way for Scootaloo could activate the spell herself so she didn’t have to rely on a unicorn to cast the spell.
It's easier to quote directly from my fic for this part rather than try to summarize a summary.
Sunburst arrives in Ponyville and bonds with all of Starlight's friends, including Nova, who was puzzling over Scootaloo's flight problem at the time. Sunburst was fascinated by the project but Starlight was getting more and more frustrated, physically pushing him on to the next thing. Later, Starlight runs off in tears and Sunburst asks her friends about how they connect with Starlight; he eventually gets to Nova, who says she's been helping him with the flight project, and Sunburst realizes they both still love to puzzle out magical mysteries. He presents his findings to Starlight, who agrees, and they buckle down to help Scootaloo once and for all. The solution they come up with is a magically charged gemstone that Scootaloo would have to wear between her wings, which would power up the natural pegasus magic in them to extend a magic construct from her small wings to about the size of an average pegasus wing. It would have to be recharged by a unicorn every now and then but that was a small price to pay for flight. Their next project would be to eliminate the need to recharge, or at least recharge via unicorn, but this would do for now. They asked Rarity to design something for Scootaloo to wear that could house the flight gem and keep it snuggly in place; something comfortable but durable enough to be worn constantly by a very active pony. She comes up with several outfits that Scootaloo can switch the gem between, from sporty to formal, and assures Scootaloo that she can come back anytime when she grows out of them or if she needs something more specific. Scootaloo is beyond thrilled with the results and Twilight encourages them to write a research paper about their work. This inspires Rarity to try to break into Sports Fashion, which Scootaloo can model for as repayment. Rainbow Dash gets roped into it too, and the idea comes up to get an endorsement from the Wonderbolts. Rainbow is hesitant but agrees if the line can pass Rainbow's scrutiny; she flat out refuses to endorse something she wouldn't use herself. After catching Spitfire up on the situation, she agrees to keep Rarity in mind if the 'Bolts need to update their uniforms or need something special for a show.
An idea I really want to use but not sure when, I want Nova to use the wing spell on himself, as part of a costume or something. Since Twilight's feathers were more readily available than any other pegasus' feathers, he used one of them for the base of the modified spell and got some feathered wings. When he realized they weren't fading like AJ's did, he freaks out that they might be at least semi-permanent, likely because he used an alicorn feather instead of a pegasus feather. He isn't an alicorn himself, just a unicorn that happens to have wings and no connection to earth pony magic.
I'm no sure what else to do with the idea, but it is freaking adorable and I can't top thinking about it lol...
~@~
Unrefined Story Bits
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"What can we do to repay you?"
Rarity: Hmm… perhaps you could model for me sometimes; even as a filly, I can tell you have a marvelously athletic build that would look just stunning in some of my dresses.
Scootaloo: *cringe* Dresses…?
Rarity: *gasp* Idea~! I’ve never been able to bring in the sportier crowd, but if I can find a way to make athletic clothing both comfortable and stylish, it could open up a whole new market for me! Oooo, perhaps you and Rainbow Dash could even get the Wonderbolts to try them! Such an endorsement would be huge for cornering that market. Everyone deserves to be stylish! Even if they don’t think so!
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Rainbow Dash: This is awesome, Scoots!
Scootaloo: There is one little hiccup for this whole thing, though. She wants me to convince you to convince the other Wonderbolts to try her new athletic line when she's done with it.
Rainbow Dash: Athletic clothes, huh? I dunno, Rarity has a habit of making things more frilly than functional. I’d have to vet everything before ever bringing it up to the other ‘bolts, buuut if it can pass muster, I’ll tell them about it, no problem!
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Rainbow Dash: Hey, Spitfire!
Spitfire: Hey, Dash, what’s up?
Rainbow Dash: Can I talk to you for a minute? Well, maybe a little longer than a minute… Actually, you might wanna sit down, this could take a while.
Spitfire: Sure, is something wrong?
Rainbow Dash: Not exactly. It’s kind of a long story but I promise there’s a point to it.
Spitfire: Ok…
Rainbow Dash: So, you remember Scootaloo, right? Little orange Pegasus who’s my number one fan?
Spitfire: Yeah, I've seen her around.
Rainbow Dash: She… has trouble flying; actually, she can barely fly at all-
Spitire: That’s depressing.
Rainbow Dash: - I know, right?! Anyways, one of her friends did some really cool magic stuff with a gemstone so that she can fly now but the magic gem has to stay put between her wings. One of my friends is a fashion clothes designer and agreed to make a harness for the gem but wanted a favor in return. She’s gonna try to break into sports fashion and wanted to get an endorsement from the Wonderbolts to fast track her clothing stuff to the top.
Spitfire: I dunno about an endorsement-
Rainbow Dash: I know, and I’m gonna vet everything before I bring any of it up to the other ‘bolts; I’m flat out not going to endorse anything I wouldn’t use myself. Besides, this’ll probably be a while in the making anyways so just keep it in mind if we need to update our uniforms or we need some kind of special outfit for a performance or something, ya know? I’ve let her make a couple dresses for me for big events and she hasn’t let me down yet.
Spitfire: I’ll think about it. I would like to see this magic flight gem, though; I wonder if we could use it in a show somehow… could be a fun gimmick to play with, depending on how it works.
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