Spread Your Wings and Fly
Rainbow Dash spread her majestic wings and began to take off. The high pressure under her wings began to lift her from the grassy valley bringing her toward the salvation that she daily craved. The freedom of the open space and the wind blowing through the several layers of feathers felt like pure ecstasy only pegasi had the joy of feeling. With her rainbow mane blown back, she sped into the distance. Through her feeling of joy she couldn’t help but feel something was out of place. There was no air resistance.
Dash didn’t think much of it but it caught her attention enough to make her hover in contemplation over the grassy plains. Grassy plains? Now that she thought about it, the horizon had become an endless sea of grass. She didn’t recognize her location, nor did she believe she was in Equestria at all. That’s when she began to panic.
Flashing thoughts of how she got there and why this doesn’t look like Equestria passed through her mind and worried her further. That’s when she realized it; she was no longer flapping her wings. She hovered in shock and stood still mid-air before coming to her senses. She began to flail from fear of falling from such a height but she did not drop in altitude. That’s when her memory finally came back to her, chilling her spine and letting fear paralyze her body once again. She was dreaming.
----+----
It was just another day in ponyville and it didn’t seem like anything was going to be different. Rainbow Dash was out on her weather patrol to keep the skies clear. The whole week was scheduled to have sunny days. It was going to be a perfect week. What no pony could have expected was a turn for the worst. And when it hit, there wasn’t anything anypony could do. A freak tornado.
The tornado itself came from the Everfree Forest. It was kept mostly hidden by the thick canopy of the trees, only being seen when it uprooted trees in its path. It was heading straight for Fluttershy’s cottage. Though the tornado was short, it made up for its lack of height with strength. Rainbow Dash had caught sight of the tornado as it came to a clearing. That’s when her instincts kicked in.
She sped toward it to reverse the rotation of the tornado and disperse the high winds that destroyed everything in its wake. She tried countering the moves of the vortex by just flying out of its reach and creating a spiral of her own to dwarf the tornado. She had begun to slow the tornado but was unprepared for what happened next. Her right wing got caught in the tornado and yanked straight out of its socket. This caused Rainbow Dash to spiral right into the tornado itself. She tried to straighten herself out with her good wing but as she tried to straighten it out, an uprooted tree struck her left wing. The velocity and force of the speeding tree was enough to completely amputate the appendage and sent dash in a fit of blinding pain. It became too much and she passed out in the midst of the destructive disaster.
Fortunately for Dash, an elite squad of weather ponies had seen her efforts and quickly sprung into action. The ten of them quickly finished the work Rainbow Dash had started. Half of them repeated the process Dash had used to slow the tornado while the other half went to retrieve the mangled, cyan pegasus from the deadly clutches of the funnel. The tornado soon disappeared and the pegasi were able to direct their attention to Dash. They were careful when scooping her up and brought her to the hospital.
Dash, according to the doctors, was in a comatose state and they were not sure if she was ever going to wake up. Her friends visited her every day, each of them giving her their feelings toward her as a friend. The most heartfelt confession was from Fluttershy. If it weren’t for Dash, she would be the one in the bed or even worse, the ground. She cried next to Dash’s bed for days, letting her tears stain her canary yellow fur. Everypony knew how Fluttershy felt and left her alone.
----+----
Rainbow Dash could suddenly hear the soft sobs of her fellow pegasus. Though the everlasting sun on the horizon seemed inviting she could not leave her friends. Fluttershy’s crying seemed to come from the opposite direction of the sun and called to her, beckoningly. She followed the cries of her friend, flying at a speed of which would have guaranteed her a spot on the Wonderbolts. But she was not worried about that. She was more concerned with coming back to reality.
In front of her, manifested a lone rain cloud. The sobs seemed to emanate from the cloud and looked like it wept for Dash. But when she got close, a shock was sent through Dash, tightening her muscles and shaking her limbs uncontrollably. The more and more she tried to get close to the cloud, the more the pain grew. However, this invisible barrier could not anticipate the determination of the Element of Loyalty. With one last heave, she sped straight toward the cloud with such speed that she crashed into it, making it disappear into vapor and causing her to black out from the burst of effort needed to break the force field.
----+----
Rainbow Dash awoke in a hospital bed; a symphony of different machines working together to stabilize her could be heard over the lightly snoring Fluttershy. She had stayed all night to watch over Dash with the hope that she would wake up. Rainbow tried to call out to her friend but was unable to talk through her dry mouth and throat. The only sound that came out was an almost inaudible squeak that embarrassed her. She quickly looked around the room and found a glass of water on the bedside table to her left. As she reached for the glass, she realized that there was no longer a wing that blocked her way. She quickly looked to her back and could barely see the nub that once was her wing. Panicking, she looked over her right shoulder and could see that her other wing was bandaged at the base and was popped back into place. She gingerly sat back with a groan of both muted pain from the painkillers and sadness. That’s when she glanced at the sleeping pegasus.
She was happy to see how peaceful she was and realized that her loss of flight was necessary to keep their friendship from crashing out of the sky.
“Shy?” Dash nudged Fluttershy after drinking the glass of water. The yellow pegasus awoke only to see magenta eyes staring into her turquoise ones. The first thought that went through her mind was that she was still dreaming, but it felt too real.
“Is… is it really you?” Fluttershy’s heart began to race as she reached out to her friend.
“Yup, but I’m more glad to see you’re okay,” Dash said with a wide grin on her face.
Fluttershy leapt up from the chair she was sleeping in and quickly wrapped her hooves around her broken friend and began to weep. Dash hugged back and too began to cry. But the tears they shared were not those of sadness but those of happiness.
Even though Dash would no longer fly again, she was happy to have her friends. Being with her friends was better than sleeping on any cloud, flying with any current and creating any sonic rainboom. She felt freer with them than with any clear sky.
Her strength became her wings.
Her loyalty was the high-pressure lift.
Her friends… Her sky.
Together she can feel free.
