Rainbow Dash jumped as a loud buzzing filled the air. Looking about wildly, her eyes settled on Fleetfoot. The red-collared mare was curled up, her bare chest rising and falling to the rhythm of the offending noise. Dash smiled at the sleeping Pegasus and looked about. Lightning Dust had carved herself a loft on which she slept, and Spitfire was quietly expanding the cloud's small cavity into a small room. Rainbow looked at the ceiling, for the shaft that she had burrowed on her descent. It had been sealed, her compatriots' work, no doubt, to conceal themselves from any searching stallions.

"Where are we? How long have I been asleep?"

Her commander stopped her work and sat on the plush floor. "At the moment, beneath Cloudsdale." Catching the worried look in her subordinate's eyes, she continued. "Don't worry, we're slowly drifting away and a fair distance below."

Rainbow sighed in relief. She had impulsively chosen their current residence because of it's size, without bothering to determine it's speed and direction. If it were headed away from their captors, or too fast, it would attract the attention of searchers, who were no doubt looking for the four fugitives.

"Everypony seems to have crashed pretty hard," Spitfire chuckled at her own pun, "It's almost sunset."

“I’ve almost forgotten how it felt to sleep on a proper bed without being stuck in one position for hours on end. Damn, I miss my Cloudominium….”

Spitfire shrugged, “I wouldn’t know; I grew up sleeping on cots with my parents on dusty bases until I went to college.” She chuckled as she scooped a chunk of cloud from the wall and packed it down into a roughly shaped seat and planted herself in it. “I sleep like a baby on a stone floor.”

“Everypony knows that babies are terrible sleepers.” She turned as Fleetfoot let out a particularly loud snort, and smiled to herself, she turned back to Spitfire to continue, but was greeted by a view of the nude officer stretched out on the chair, already asleep. Dash glanced at her exposed marehood and turned away quickly as a warmth filled her own. “But feel free to prove me wrong.”

Stomping a small hole in the floor, she stared down at the greenery passing slowly below. She was a warrior, with a soul that belonged to the sky. Yet, as she gazed down, she felt her heart tug, as if it were being physically pulled to the lush scene below. She closed her eyes and pictured the a field of grass. She saw herself lying on her back, the blades tickling the joints of her sensitive wings. She reached back to scratch, but her hand was stopped short by her blue and yellow wing sheath that Soarin had given her as a “gift”, as he had called it as he roughly crimped it into place.

Part of her yearned to have the plastic ripped free and to spread her wings, but she dreaded what she might see.

What would her former pride and joy look like? Wasted, neglected nubs, atrophied from disuse? She knew that new feathers had probably grown, but what would they be? She pictured her cyan feathers, matted and split, tangled in older, mottled plumage that was slowly decaying into dust. Her stomach churned as she imagined the horrid stench of years of sweat, bacteria, and rotting flesh that had been shed. Nausea overtook her, and she crouched at the hole as bile rose in her throat. She heaved as worry and the imagined sensations.

As she spewed the contents of her belly earthward, she felt the gaze of the Fleetfoot and Lightning Dust, startled by her retching.

Fleetfoot kneeled beside her and patted her shoulder as Rainbow Dash's convulsive vomiting slowed and stopped. As she sucked in air, she felt the delicate hands working at the black collar on her neck and pulled it loose. "All of it!" Sobbed Dash as fresh air washed over her sweaty neck, like a wave over a dry rock, her flattened cyan fur rising as the constricting walls of leather receded.

"Are you sure?" Fleetfoot's lisping voice was soothing, but strained as Rainbow Dash's tears sparked her own concern. "Maybe we should take it -"

"JUST FUCKING DO IT!" She roared at the mare, waking Spitfire, startling even herself. "I'm sorry Lieutenant Commander. That was out of line."

"It's okay," Fleetfoot whispered as she worked the crimped plastic.

Another two pairs of hands joined her efforts in twisting and pulling at the seams. As the seal cracked open, the stench of sweat and decay wafted through their sanctuary. Lightning Dust gagged and turned away, but Spitfire and Fleetfoot, who had smelled worse in the field, persisted.

With a crackle, the sheaths parted, and cold, clean air surged against the emancipated appendages. Her left wing was barren, devoid of feathers, but her right was overgrown with them. Stiff and arthritic from years of being held in a semi-extended position, Dash felt her joints grind in protest as her weak wings drooped in surrender to gravity.

"Lay down, Dash." Spitfire's tone was kind, but authoritative. She eased Rainbow onto her belly, gathering the cloud around her face to serve as a pillow. Fleetfoot began to knead the base of the wing, while Spitfire worked her way along the wings' humeri to the elbows, which she slowly massaged open.

Rainbow Dash squeezed her eyes shut as her wings slowly stretched to their full extent. Carpals, metacarpals, and the bones between.... In order, her joints were massaged and, with uncomfortable pops and snaps, slowly extended and contracted until they could move freely. Gentle hands preened her, pulling loose feathers free and cleaning the healthy.

Behind her, she felt Lightning Dust come back and massage her atrophied muscles, kneading and pressing on the dilapidated limbs, and rubbing feeling into long-forgotten nerves. “You have some broken Primaries that I need to pluck.” Rainbow slowly turned her head to look sidelong at her friend. “I’ll make it quick.” She grasped the base of the damaged feathers. “On the count of three.” Without hesitation, she simultaneously pulled them free.

“Who the hell taught you to count?”

“Medic on my dad’s base,” Lightning Dust chuckled as she dabbed a patch of cloud against Dash’s bleeding wing.

Rainbow Dash held the puff of cloud to the wounds and stood up and experimentally flexed her wings. She grimaced as the movement strained her unused tendons, but forced them to spread wider and wider to their full length. Groaning with the effort she flapped, lifting herself into a low hover, before lightly touching down again, off-balence from her plucked wing's lack of lift. With a grin, she turned to her colleagues.

“Who brought their PT belts?”

Author's Note

One of the major questions that I've noticed floating around the comments of the FoE stories is what happens to the wings of the pegasi. Sun's Setting by Twipet mentions that the sheaths have runes within them that prevent feather growth. So why did Rainbow's wing grow back?

Stay tuned folks.