It was a cold, rainy day in Ponyville. The soothing pitter patter of rain droplets assaulting the window filled the bright room, along with the noises of several machines from the various other rooms in the building. A lone pony sat there, her wheel chair facing the rain-distorted window. Her mane had grown dark from the lack of sunshine she endured since being admitted. She stared out at the little fillies and colts playing in the damp streets, their parents calling out to them not to catch a cold or to be safe.
The hospital was no doubt accommodating, given the circumstances of her stay. The nurses were kind for the most part, and the food was fine, albeit a bit bland. It wasn’t the worst food she’d ever had - that award went to Lyra’s lovely non-vegetarian gazpacho. That is, assuming it was supposed to be gazpacho. Bon Bon really should cook more often.
The nurses wheeled somepony into the room.
“Is your leg OK?” one questioned.
“Y-Yes, it’s just fine, thank you.” responded the disabled pony. His fur was a light brown, the color of an old dusty road out in the country; warn from the various hoof-prints it endured during the seasons. His mane sported an interesting cut. His hot chocolate locks dangled close to his emerald eyes, parted just above his forehead.
Great, a new roommate.
The clock ticked and tocked. The sound resonated throughout her head, bouncing off the walls of her skull and making its way to her brain. It was the incessant noise that the desaturated window watcher despised with a fiery passion. Her roommate breathed heavily; probably hurting from whatever ailment that was affecting his leg.
“Hi,” the stallion spoke, “I’m William. But everyone calls me Bill, even though I ask them not to. What’s your name?”
The sleep deprived pony drew a breath.
“Rainbow Dash,” She answered slowly.
His bright green eyes shone at this, “hey! Aren’t you that pony that saved the wonder-bolts a few years back?”
She drew another tired breath, “yes, I am.”
The colt re-adjusted himself, banging his cast against the side of his bed. The pain traveled though his foot and up his leg. His pain wasn’t going to stop him from talking.
“S-so, what’s a pony like you doing in this annoyingly bright and depressing place? I’d expect someone like you would be out, flying with celebrities and doing insane stunts with the wonder bolts.”
Rainbow Dash sighed, “That was before...”
She turned her chair around, the wheels squeaking. Her upper torso was covered in linen and her back pressed firmly against the chair.
The young colt didn’t understand and looked at her puzzled, “Before what?”
Slowly she took her bandages off, the last one fell to the floor and she stood up, turning around and exposing her smooth, wingless back.
The colt gasped and bit his lip.
“W-what happened to your wings?” He stuttered.
She returned the bandages to her torso, being careful to make them tighter around the tender stubs that were once her wings, and sat down again, returning her view to the rainy window.
“It happened a few years ago,” she began.
It was a warm, summer day. The sun was shining, kissing the ponies below with its warm embrace. Thankfully it wasn’t the busiest of days, it gave the ponies a sense of calm.
Rainbow Dash was doing her routine cloud duties. The same boring schedule, every other week. Rain this week, for so long, sunshine this week, for so long.
Below her, the intricate and colorful town seemed like the smallest of play toys. She could see anypony from up high. There went Vinyl Scratch and Octavia, and there goes Spike, Twilight, and Fluttershy. Everypony looked like ants from her position.
It was no doubt painful for the multicolored Pegasus, doing cloud duty. She wasn’t meant to do these slow duties. She should be out there, breaking up the clouds with lightning speed or racing anypony foolish enough to challenge her.
But no, cloud duties come first and affect the ecosystem and if she were to slack off again she would get written up for the third time and sent home again, blah blah. Thankfully, however, there were just three more clouds left, and they were gone and cleared before you could say “Go, Rainbow Dash!”
Rainbow returned to her post in Cloudsdale. The fluffy clouds always felt good on her hooves, and it was nice to give her wings a break... Not that they needed it. Honestly, flying felt better to her than walking.
She knew the offices well and navigated them with ease. A few ponies greeted her as she strolled by them, looking up from their typewriters, forms, files and various other paperwork.
She knocked on her boss’s door and entered. Seated behind the cloud desk was her portly employer. He stood at eye level to rainbow dash, and weighed twice as much as her. It honestly surprised her that he didn’t sink through the cloud floor.
He looked up at her from his newspaper, gave her the once over, and returned his eyes to his favorite gossip column.
“Finish up the western quadrant?” He questioned.
The rainbow pony let out a quick “Hah!”
“That sky didn’t know what hit it,” she bragged.
“Mph,” the brown boss pony behind the desk stood up and looked at the charts he had strewn about his wall. There was a pie chart here, a schedule there, and hundreds of little note pads everywhere. It looked like something Discord himself would’ve been proud to call his own.
Dash stood there awkwardly, waiting for the OK to go home. She was supposed to meet with Pinkie Pie an hour or two ago.
“We’re goanna need you to take the western, eastern, and northern quads tomorrow,” He explained, “Sprinkle Medley, Merry May, and the Shine Sisters are all out sick.”
Dash’s mouth dropped.
“What?!” She exclaimed, “I can hardly do two quadrants, let alone three! It also doesn’t help that two of those quadrants need rain clouds tomorrow. What about you go out there and do Merry May’s quadrant, tubby?”
He turned to look at her, his wings opened up to make himself look bigger and tougher.
“That’s enough sass from you, young lady. If I talked to my boss like that when I was your age, he woulda thrown me out on the spot! In fact, I will personally see to it that if those quads go unfinished by the end of your shift, you’ll be terminated with no chance of re-hiring! Besides, aren’t you the fastest flier in Equestria or something stupid like that?”
Rainbow Dash got in the boss pony’s face, her wings flapping rapidly in anger.
“You listen here, Tubby,” -she poked his large belly with her hoof- “I can’t do all of those quadrants in one day, let alone one shift. If you can’t be happy with what I deliver, put me on another shift!”
The scruffy old work Pegasus smiled at this.
“Get out. Enjoy finding a new job.”
The blue Pegasus’s eyes lit up with rage.
“How dare you fire me!” she exclaimed, “I’m the best, and quickest worker you have here! I’ve increased our efficiency by 40 percent! I should be the one behind this desk! Come to think of it, before I came here, we would’ve been lucky if we had a properly scheduled rain that didn’t quit half way through!”
The old pony pushed her away.
“Out of my face!” he yelled, “My decision is final! Pack your bags and hit the road!”
Rainbow Dash seethed through her teeth, “fine! Have it your way!” she exclaimed before darting out of his office, leaving a trail of papers and files behind her.
She flew through the offices, the wind whipping at her face. How could he had been so stupid? She was the hardest, and most productive pony he’d ever hired!
The wind stung her eyes, causing them to water. She bumped into two ponies before flying through the snowflake room. Her multicolored air trail kicked up every single snow flake, the Pegasi below ran around the room, trying to catch the flakes in their specialized snowflake catching hats. She wanted to go back and apologize. She wanted to go back and help them.
She was blind with rage.
She flew through the cloud room, where everypony was busy working on the big thunderstorm in a couple of months. The one Rainbow Dash wouldn’t be making.
The inner workings of the cloud machines are interesting to say the least. The gears below filter the water, poured into the large funnel at the top of the machine, into a boiling hot metallic bowl where steam is expelled from the top with tremendous force and a large cotton-like cloud emerges.
The sudden jet of steam hit the speedy Pegasus and knocked her off balance, clipping her right wing and knocking her to the left. She hit one of the funnel-like contraptions and flipped, falling into the cogs and gears. The hot machinery burned against her fur and stunned her. The gears grabbed hold of her wings, crushing the bones, bit by bit. She could feel the tendons and feathers being ripped at, little by little. She cried out in agony as one of her wings ripped from its socket. Her bright red blood spewed out like a fountain across the machine.
Then, everything was dark.
She opened her eyes, the sting of the lights assaulted her vision. She blinked a bit, her pupils adjusting to the glaring lighting above her. Several machines were hooked up to her legs and hoofs. She tried to call out, only to find a large tube stuffed down her throat.
What day was it? How long had she been there? She looked around the room, to her left was one of those heart monitor things, probably something Twilight would know about. Next to it was a bag with clear fluid, probably some kind of water solution. Underneath it hung a half empty bag with yellow mush inside. Great, the worst food in existence, applesauce, was slowly being injected into her. At the foot of her bed lay a large vase with several flowers with a dozen pastel colored balloons tied to it. The flowers were no doubt Rarity’s work, and Pinkie Pie must’ve tied the balloons up afterwards. They were half deflated.
She looked to her right, and to her surprise, there lay Twilight. The purple pony was hunched over the arm of a large cushiony chair, both hooves dangling next to the bed. Her hair was unkempt, and Rainbow Dash could smell her body odor from where she was laying. Had she been there long? The purple pony’s chest moved up and down, and her eyes were shut, caked with crust.
Rainbow Dash tried to reach out to her and grab her hoof. The wires and tubes stopped her half way.
“wihlighn” the Pegasus tried to speak, her voice muffled from the large tube.
The pony in the chair shifted and opened her eyes briefly, only for them to close again.
Rainbow dash cleared her throat, or rather, made the sound an injured timber wolf with a bad cold might make while drowning.
Twilight jolted awake and stared at rainbow dash. Minutes passed. What seemed like hours. The intelligent pony stared for far longer than anticipated. It seemed like she had seen a ghost, or maybe a miracle.
Then, Twilight hugged her.
A sharp pain shot through Dash’s back. She cried out in agony and Twilight quickly returned her to her resting position.
“Nurse, she’s awake!” She called out.
A bright pink nurse pony trotted into the room, her blond locks, parted at her horn, danced in front of her eyes as she grabbed a clipboard with her magic. Her name tag read “Joy”.
“Hello there, Mrs. Dash,” she said in a light manehatten accent, “How are you feeling today?”
Rainbow Dash nodded slightly, the pain in her back subsiding.
The nurse looked at the signs and lights on the nearby machines “Any ringing in your ears?”
Rainbow Dash shook her head slightly, although, she could never truthfully tell if they were ringing or it was just her imagination.
“Would you like for us to take the breathing machine off you so you can talk?”
Rainbow’s eyes lit up with excitement. She nodded frantically, the tube in her throat poking at her esophagus. The nurse pony walked over to the machine and placed her hoof on the off switch.
“Be sure to breathe deeply, ok?”
The button depressed, and Rainbow could feel her lungs return under her own control. The nurse pony grabbed the tube that lead from the machine to her mouth and pulled hard.
The feeling of the plastic rub against the inside of her throat was enough to make the Pegasus gag and vomit up some of the artificially eaten apple sauce that lay in her stomach.
Twilight wiped Rainbow Dash’s mouth with a napkin, and gently floated it over to the trash can with her magic.
Dash cleared her throat.
“Hey, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash looked over at her good friend, her voice shaky “Hows it g-going?”
A purple hoof ran through Dash’s multicolored mane. The feeling of being petted lulled the weak and nauseous Pegasus into a feeling of calmness. “What happened?”
Twilight looked down at the blue pony’s legs.
“You fell into one of the cloud generators at your work. You were moments from being crushed to death. You’re very lucky to be alive.” She smiled at the Pegasus.
Rainbow looked around the room again. The floor was adorned with mismatched ivory and white tiles. Next to her vase of flowers lay a small pile of cards and stuffed animals, one of which was a human.
She looked up at Twilight. Sometime between her waking up, and the nurse leaving the room, she had managed to fix her hair, at least to a degree.
“How long have I been here?”
Twilight looked over at the calendar, “I’d say about two weeks.”
Dash groaned slightly, “Have you been here the whole time?”
Twilight pulled Rainbow’s covers up, “Well, not the whole time, no. Me and AJ took turns waiting for you to wake up. You lost quite a lot of blood, and we were both so worried that we decided to take some time off from our normal routine of studies and apple farming to watch over you. You own guardian angles, so to speak.”
Rainbow Dash looked at the door, a small group doctor ponies trotted by her door, one or two glanced in.
“How much blood did I lose?”
Twilight sat back in her chair, “Well, you were a pint or two away from death, from what the nurses told me.”
Dash smiled at this. Even death couldn’t touch her awesomeness.
She looked back at the door to see an orange earth pony standing there. The bags under her eyes said that she hadn’t slept well in a long time. Her hat jiggled loosely on her head as she walked to the bed side.
“Hey there, darlin'” Applejack smiled, “Been a while since we seen ya, you feelin’ ok?”
Rainbow Dash nodded, “Yeah, I’m fine, a bit numb, but fine. How bad did I look when I came in here? Did I leave a trail of blood across the factory floor or something cool like that?”
Twilight and AJ looked at each other. The both remembered how terrible she looked when she had gotten there, exposed flesh, broken bones, cooked fur. Her legs were burned badly, her back was bleeding so much.
“Y-yea,” AJ smiled weakly, “Doctors said you almost went and used all the blood they had!”
Rainbow Dash smiled at this, “Awesome.”
Author's Note
This is my first fanfiction, I know my writing style is sloppy. Feel free to leave any constructive critisism!
