A Clump Of Stumps

by The Master Eraser

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, Dark, Comedy, Random
Length: 6858

An anthology of one-shots featuring amputees in Equestria.

An anthology of one-shots featuring amputees in Equestria.

As posted to the randomly-reviving Amputee threads on 4chan/mlp/.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2015-06-26 05:59:52 UTC

Jinx Jive has a problem

Jinx Jive has a problem.

It's not a missing hoof problem. It's an honesty problem.

The concussion and sprained back were real. The drink from Flim and Flam had been refreshing, and she was sure she would recover soon enough, but it didn't heal her immediately.

She was smiling and whistling as she wheeled back to her home. The concussion still had her woozy, and she didn't see the stallion she ran into.

"Ouch!" He said, and stood up, rubbing his hip. He adjusted his glasses. "Well if that don't beat all. Sorry, ma'am, didn't watch where I was walking. At this rate, I'll need another cool, refreshing glass of that all natural Flim Flam Brothers elixir."

He was kind, and he was sympathetic toward her plight. He walked her home, and before he left, asked if she might consider a date the following evening.

She met him at the restaurant near the library, and they enjoyed a daisy sandwich. Curiously, his hair was styled differently than the day before.

That night, he massaged her sore back and rump. She was grateful. They kissed. And then, they went further.

He made her feel whole.

Afterward, her head was swimming. Again, he came to her rescue. First, he helped with her pain pills. Then, he carefully re-wound the bandage, which had come loose since she'd left the hospital.

"Where'd you learn how to bandage ponies, Silver?" she asked him, more comfortable than she'd been all week.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Can you keep a secret?"

He bandaged himself differently each night, he said, to get the crowd excited about the elixir. He had become an expert at bandages because sometimes ponies would get too excited and pull their bandages free. He also had to maintain the pretense of injury, and a badly wound bandage would reveal the lack of a wound.

"One time, I even bound up my whole leg like it had gotten cut off."

She raised her eyebrows. "That's quite a trick." She yawned. "You would've sold a lot more if you'd found a unicorn who could take a leg off temporarily."

A month after the whole Flim Flam Elixir Scam had blown over, her doctor said she was healed. She'd maintained her health and healed quickly because of the excess stock Silver had left with her, though now she was under no illusions as to its medicinal properties.

She walked out of the hospital on all fours, painless and unbandaged, free of the chair that had been her rear legs for so long.

And nopony gave her a second glance.

The friends who had wished her well when she'd been convalescing? Nodded and wished her a nice day. The shop owners who'd been extra nice while she was shopping from her rump-cart? Back to haggling. The foals who'd given her a wide berth while she'd been temporarily crippled? Bumping and laughing a little too close for comfort.

Her life was quite suddenly back to normal.

And she hated it.

That night, she dreamed she was back in her little cart, pulling herself along with just her forehooves. It felt like home. It felt right. And it felt so real that, when she woke at 3 am, she reached for it so she could roll to the restroom. It wasn't there, of course, and for a moment, she panicked.

And then Jinx Jive remembered lying there in that bed, body broken and soul mended by the kind ministrations of a gifted liar.

It was time to rectify her unfortunate good health.

"This blade was enchanted by Furlong the Graciously Extended," said the shop owner. "It has the power to temporarily sever body parts. But be warned, young mare, if a piece of body is not reattached within twenty-four hours, the magic will stop, and the bleeding will begin."

It had taken research, her life's savings, and a trip to the seedier side of Canterlot, but now she had it in her soon-to-be-detached hooves. Soon, she would have the body she needed, and she would be adored again. Soon, she would be half the mare she was.

Jinx was breathing way too fast.

The only other sound in her duplex was the clock ticking. Blood rushed through her ears as she looked at the table.

There was the knife, glass blade glowing blue with a hint of purple. There was the sheath, bronze sheen reflecting the blade's glow. There were the bandages she'd bought, each package from a different store so that nopony would ask why she had so many. There was the medical tape, ready to hold everything together.

Was she ready for this? The store pony in Canterlot had demonstrated the blade's capabilities by removing his ear and pressing it back onto his head. He'd winced slightly at the cut, but he was unharmed.

Would this make her a bad pony? Silver had talked to her about the importance of honesty when his bosses had been found out.

Was she ashamed? Yes, that was it. She was ashamed that she felt she needed this. She was ashamed that she wanted to be a pony everypony would pity.

But seeing her shame in the naked light of day steeled her resolve. With shaking forehooves, she picked up the knife and sat up against her bed's backboard. She held it above her ankle.

Jinx Jive pushed downward.

The point touched her ankle. The point went into her ankle.

The point was in her ankle.

It wasn't like a cat scratching her, or a paper cut. It was a dull ache, and she could clearly feel the entirety of the tip of the knife. In addition, it just looked wrong. Like a trick of perspective, it was like the hide of her ankle was simply in front of the blade. And all of this took the space of a second.

Reflexively, she jerked the blade free, and dropped it to the bed. She curled up and rubbed her ankle. As promised, there was no blood. She couldn't even see where she'd pushed the blade into her hide.

Her panting breath became a hoarse laugh. She rolled onto her back and kicked all four of her legs into the air. "Ha ha! It works! It works!"

She practiced putting the double-sided blade into her legs, and pulling it out injury-free. It was the strangest thing she'd ever felt, and yet it was surprising fun.

A few minutes later, as she was tiring of the experiments, her tummy grumbled. She started toward the kitchen, and then stopped. What better way to celebrate her newfound freedom from normalcy than to make her disabled debut at dinner.

Her tidy little pony mind became quite businesslike as she plotted and planned the perfect progression. The ruse would be ruined were the length of her legs to recover.

She would start halfway between hoof and ankle. If she chickened out, she could say passersby simply saw it wrong. She climbed back onto her bed, two unopened packages of bandages in her mouth.

There lay the blade. Gingerly, she picked it up once more. She wiggled her left hind hoof as she stretched out the leg it was currently attached to. "Goodbye, my dear," she said, positioning herself just right.

She pushed down.

Like a hot knife through butter, the glowing glass blade slipped through her hair, skin, muscle, bone, and nerve.

Her jaw dropped. Her hoof, and part of her foot, lay on the bed near her leg. The ache disappeared when the knife had finished the cut, and now there was no sensation from her hoof.

She placed the blade gently to one side, and leaned closer. She bent her ankle, and felt the truncated tendons and muscles slide over each other. A shiver ran through her body.

She picked her hind hoof up off the bed. It was limp, warm, and floppy. She had half-expected that the magic might let her feel her loose limbs' sensations remotely, but that was clearly not the case.

She turned it around. She'd never seen the hoof from this angle before. She could see all the chips and cracks, the odd texture of her frog, and the match of hair color and hoof color. She turned the sliced end toward herself, and was surprised to see blood vessels expanding and contracting in rhythm with her rapidly beating heart.

This, then, was the magic that would make her whole.

Two feet missing, slightly different lengths. Two sets of bandages, wrapped carefully to show what was missing. Two wheels resting in front of a mushroom-shaped table. Two forehooves holding a peanut butter and daisy sandwich.

Two sets of eyes locked across an outdoor dining area. Two expressions, one of shock and one of feigned innocence.

Two bodies locked in passion that night.

And thus began the story of Jinx Jive, Equestrian Wannabe.

Grabby Hooves

"So, it must be nice to have fingers. I never had fingers." She wiggles over to you on the couch, and lays her head on your leg.

You scratch behind her ear. "I've seen ponies pick up things with your hooves. How does that work?"

She leans into the scratch, her head almost sideways. "Oooh. Okay, well, I only took science until I got my Mark, but it's basically that we're held together by magic, and hoof stuff can stick to other stuff."

You smile. "On Earth, we call that 'electromagnetism.' It's the same stuff as magnetic waves and electricity."

She pushes down on your hand with the side of her face, which is now pretty squished between her head and your leg. "Yeah. Magic. It's lightning and compasses, and you don't think it's magic?"

You look over where the back wall of your bathroom has a door into her bathroom in Ponyville.

It's always felt like a solid connection, nothing sparkly or shimmery, and you've wondered what would happen if you took a sledgehammer to the wall. Would you see a hyperspace tunnel or something? Is it just one of those unexplainable things?

She's rolled over and is looking up at you, one eye covered by her mane bangs. You scratch under her chin. "Anyway, when you're over there, I bet you could pick up stuff with your fingerhooves."

"Fingernails."

She laughs. "Nails are what you put in hooves to make shoes stay on. You dork."

"So how does the grabby magic work?" you ask.

She looks up and to the left. "Miss Gardengreen started by asking when our food becomes us. Is it us when we start eating it? When we get hungry again? When the stuff that doesn't become us turns into h-horseapples?"

She hesitated when she swore, and now her snout is scrunched. You can't help yourself; you start laughing.

The scrunching intensifies.

You can't breathe, you're laughing so hard.

You remember the conversation the next time you're on her side. It's a couple of days later, and she's at work.

You feel dumb, but you put your fingernails against a banana. Careful not to be pinching it or holding it in the usual human manner, you try to pick it up.

Nothing happens.

Well, it sort of moves as you touch it, but that's expected. It doesn't rise up as if on a magnet.

You keep trying. You think of The Force, you think of magnets, you even say "Abracadabra" a couple of times.

You're trying again, finding another place on the banana that doesn't have little half-moon bruises, when you hear giggling behind you.

You turn bright red. "Very funny."

"You tried! You actually tried!" she says, scootching her limbless body over toward you. She headbutts your leg. "Total dweeb."

You pick her up and, stepping across to your side, plop her down in the sock drawer. "Trickster."

She yawns. "Sleepy trickster."

You both nap until dinner.

Sticky Stubs and Trimmed Talons

The prehensile magic which lets Pinkie control her mane and AJ her tail is common to the ponies of Equestria.  It also lets ponies missing limbs attach anything roughly limb-shaped to a stump and control it.

A villain in Manehattan had her forelimbs removed on purpose just to get bigger, stronger metal legs, before being brought to heel by the city police.  She was a mobster, so she couldn't afford to go under general anesthesia and risk being slain by her enemies.  She had a bunch of local anesthetics to deaden the pain, and got to watch the entire procedure.

Maud wears the cloak to hide the fact that her super-strong rear legs are actually grey felt-covered sacks of sand. She lost the originals saving Pinkie from a rockslide.

Contrast this to the other sapient races of Equestria.  Ponies have massive strength and sturdiness, their destiny is revealed by their cutie marks, and ponies have the ability to use any old thing as a prosthetic.  Meanwhile, a griffon who maimed a foal had her talons "trimmed" down a knuckle.

Of course, some griffons seek out this privilege.

You know how birds are totally reckless and suicidal, flying right in front of your car at the last moment?

Imagine sapient creatures with the same carefree attitude toward their own parts.

The coolest teen griffons have a gang that you can only get into if you've been trimmed, with a minimum of one front talon gone at the outermost joint, with a maximum of nine gone at the knuckle. They must have one untouched talon.  To get in, meet those requirements. Doesn't matter how much or little else is missing, as long as those are met.  At least one finger gone, but not all of them.

Their criminal trade is the underground meat market, but most of them are not hardcore criminals.  They're there to show off.

If someone loses their last talon, they get kicked out?  Yep, they're out. It's a game, like shuffleboard or curling, where you can go too far.  It was originally about devotion to the criminal enterprise, with a one talon minimum, but over time it evolved as dumbasses got their arms off and still expected to be useful members of the gang.

Nowadays the clipping court (as it's known in slang) is wary of sentencing griffons to talon-only trims. They don't want to encourage the gang life. But that just makes it more of a game and a goal: what else can you lose and still make it into the gang?

The trimming clinic is a bunch of smiling medical ponies who are quite professional about their jobs. No sadism, no mess, just cold bureaucracy and warm smiles.

There's probably a lucrative black market for limbs to be grafted onto trimmed griffons. Since they're registered criminals, they might get caught with the new limbs.  Punishment for being re-limbed is simple: cut it off farther up, so it can't be grafted as easily.

The trimming clinic's young intern, who hopes to get her cutie mark in amputating, gets to do her first trim.

Diamond Dog Gumshoe

She was a quiet little thing, one leg shy, and I was the best diamond dog detective in the county. I was the only diamond dog in the county, so it wasn't as hard as it sounds.

"Are you Dick the dog?" she asked.

"I sure ain't Sam Spayed," I replied.

"Somepony stole my leg last night."

I looked close. Her right foreleg was off halfway between shoulder and elbow. Ponies are built pretty squat, so all she had left was a stub that wiggled a bit when she moved. I could sympathize.

"You sure healed up quick," I said.

She blushed redder than a bare nose at winter wrap-up. "Somepony stole the leg I usually wear."

I nodded. "Sounds like a case to me."

unexpected

The strangest part wasn't how she kept trying to walk on four legs when she rolled out of bed in the mornings.

The strangest part wasn't the special socks she had to wear to keep her stump from getting sores.

The strangest part was the thrill she got every time she touched the misshapen lump that was once her left rear leg.

Sometimes she would lie in the grass and close her eyes, all three hooves on her stump. It felt like her fourth was still there. It felt like it was sticking out between her three hooves, and if she just moved them up her leg-

and when her hooves met each other too soon, it was always delightfully unexpected.

Krastos the Glue-Maker

Wooden prosthetics lovingly hoofcrafted, bound together with straps of leather made from her own dead limb's hide, enchanted with love and moving as if real.  That's how they did it back in the olden days.

After an accident, it's discovered that grandma's leg also works for her direct line. Granddaughter will be just fine.

Krastos the Knacker, known by impressionable foals by his less savory folk title "glue maker", is a ram who lives on the outskirts of Hoofington. He carries on a proud tradition from his homeland, where to live in peace with the puma tribe, the dead are rendered and given as meat to the carnivores. In exchange, the puma people protect both tribes.

He works leather on the side.

The Silverwings

Ponies had gone to the stars. But with the wonders they found in their home galaxy of Luna's Mane, they also found corruption. Space gangsters, space pirates, and a violent creature named Mon-Starr.

They also found that their bodies weren't up to the task of taking the violent accelerations necessary for space combat. They might have stayed home, but they'd incurred the interest of the fiends and scum of the outer realms. They needed a space police force to keep Equus safe for all hoofkind.

They need to become The Silverwings.

Pound and Pumpkin Cake, twins whose bodies nearly rejected the augments, who share a special magical bond. Rocket Rainbow, headstrong leader with undying loyalty like his mother. Apple Jane, earth pony with the heart of a Pegasus and hooves of steel. Alazar, aka The Kid, who understands equuish, but speaks only his native Goat tongue. And Sweetie Belle, whose cyber wings never worked, but whose voice rings across the stars with evil-piercing light.

They patrol the spaceways, keeping them safe from crime and corruption. Together with space police chief Braeburn, they and their equally modified animal companions are the Silverwings, cyborg space law enforcement heroes!

My Plumsweet

Plumsweet looked out the train window wordlessly as we rolled on toward Dodge Junction.

I put my arm around her shoulders as I sat on the bench where she lay. "It'll be okay, Sweets."

She turned to me. "You'll just carry me to the door of Cherry Hill Ranch," she says, with pain in her voice, "you'll knock, and when she comes to the door, I'll say, 'Hi, Mom, I'm getting married to a biped from another dimension. By the way, I also lost two legs.' It'll go super."

She sniffled, and wiped tears from her face with her foreleg stump. "I'm sorry, lovemonkey, I don't mean to be sarcastic."

I hugged her tightly. "I understand. I'd be nervous too."

"It's just... that will make it all real," she continued, "I won't be her 'Li'l Plum' anymore." Her head drooped.

"Hey now," I said, "it'll be all right. Shh, shh." I held her head (twice as big as my own) to my chest and ran my fingers through her mane.

I stared at the passing desert wordlessly, my own doubts boiling in the back of my mind..

Old Cow

The Thunderbird soared overhead, and the residents of Appleloosa looked up in relief. Soon there would be rain. Prince Silversaddle breathed a prayer of relief. He would eagerly retain the sum his coffers would have paid a pegasus team, and his duchy and estate would remain profitable.

To the west, the Buffalo village finished their rain dance. Their horns ached with the summoning, but they were content. The coming of Boh'ooo was a good omen for the upcoming wedding.

"Be gentle with him, Strongheart," said Old Cow, as she carefully put the bug-based paint in the young one's hair. "Those ponies are not as sturdy as us."

Strongheart smiled. "They are tougher than they look. You were not with us at the Battle of Orchard Path."

Old Cow scowled. "You think those ponies can take what this land has to offer? Could your Braeburn have survived the bite of the snake that rattles like I did?" She waggled her rear leg stump at the bride-to-be. "For three days in the desert, I walked on three legs, with no water but the blood of the snake that bit me. I had to survive on cactus and pebbles!"

"I do not think the pebbles were necessary," muttered Strongheart.

"I swallowed the pebbles to break the needles of the cactus! Can you find a pony so clever as I?" crowed Old Cow. "These earth ponies may be branded by the spirits, but ground beef will beat earth pony every time for wit and strength."

Her Useless Leg

Fluttershy could hear the griffins discussing her. Her leg hurt, oh so much.

She was familiar with predator traps, but she felt betrayed.  After all, the Cutie Map had sent them here. It had always worked out before.

The griffons saluted, and one flew away. The other came over to her. With a grunt and a chirp, he pulled the heavy iron stake from the ground. Then he started flapping his wings.

She had to fly to keep up with his pace. The chain holding the metal jaws to her left foreleg was long, but she wouldn't want to fall behind, or she would be dragged by the wound.  It was broken. Already she could see swelling and bruising under her coat. It hurt worse than that time she lost half her tail to an escaped tiger, and needed tail extensions to hide the scarred stump.

In the cell where she woke up, there were other ponies asleep. Many were chained, some were cuffed instead of trap-bitten, and most were quite shabby.

It only took her a day to see the worst.

The laughing guards took them a few at a time. The ones sick from compound fractures becoming infected were taken right away. Most of them weren't returned.

One came back that night, a lovely sea-green filly with freckles and an orange mane. She was shaking with fever, and Fluttershy could feel the heat coming off her.

Her right hind leg was cut short and bandaged poorly. When Fluttershy asked her name, the sea-green balanced against a wall and with a free hoof pointed at her throat, then opened her mouth.

Her orange tongue had black sutures where it had been trimmed to half its length.

Through pantomime, sea-green Mossy Fire explained that they were being eaten one by one by the griffons.

Fluttershy was nervous. She didn't want to be eaten. But her useless leg held her in place. What could she do?

She gulped, and then nibbled at her leg. The iron taste as she broke the skin was almost as unbearable as the pain.

Fluttershy mused as she chewed her flesh. She tasted like banana taffy.

She'd already eaten her forehooves, so she curled up and started nibbling on her hinds. A lick confirmed her cutie mark tasted like strawberry. She took a huge chomp, and it pulled away in taffy strings.

Pinkie Pie came into the room (she could swear she'd been in her cottage, but this was Poinkie's above Sugarcane Corner) and started licking her other mark. Owlowiscious asked her how many licks it would take to get to her creamy center, and Fluttershy felt like she was going to burst with pleasure, and then

She woke up.

She was wrapped in blankets, and could hear the wind howlig outside. Briefly, she struggled to untangle herself, and then she felt the wetness in the bed. "Oh dear."

Her remaining forehoof was sticky, and so she sighed and got out of bed. Flapping gently, she flitted into her bathroom and started the hot water. She'd had these dreams before, but none so vivid. At least the dreams didn't taste like she did in real life. It had taken her six months to get the taste out of her mind, the taste of her own blood and flesh. She stepped around the tub on her three legs, and placed the shampoo bottle in the crook of her elbow.

She closed her eyes as she bathed. The floating sensation freed her, and she could flex the phantom limb as if her hoof were still there, flexing with its twin.

Her fellow prisoner, Mossy Fire, had joined in when the pain was too much and the progress was too slow. Together, they had bitten through muscle and tendon, had clamped the arteries closed with their molars, and finally succeeded in freeing Fluttershy from her trap.

With one silent glance backward at her hoof, she flew faster than ever before. The night aided her escape, with the stealth she'd gained from her Flutterbat experience, and she headed for the palace.

Oh, the scene she caused. Twilight later filled her in on the details: she and Rarity were dining with the King of the Pride. Rarity had just finished a second helping of a hearty, delicious stew, and Twilight, with her alicorn appetite, was on her third.

"Might I ask for the recipe of this delectable soup?" asked Rarity.

The King chuckled, and said, "it's a national favorite, and relies on ingredients you may need to import. I doubt you have a market in your land that sells it."

It was at that moment Fluttershy had burst in. "They're eating ponies!" she cried out, fear and panic in her eyes. It was the implications of the blood in the fur around her muzzle, Rarity later told her, rather than the chewed-off foreleg she held to her chest in pain, which caused Rarity to faint.

Twilight, when asked about the ensuring battle, always got a faraway look in her eyes, and muttered, "The job of a Princess is to protect her herd. I did what I must."

After her bath, Fluttershy changed her sheets. It was not as difficult now as it had been at first, upon her return. Usually, Mossy would do this. Mossy lived with Discord in his pocket dimension, now. She claimed (through mouthwritten notes) that it was the only place she felt safe to sleep.

Fluttershy returned to her bed, and dreamed of grassy fields and good friends. She slept through the night comfortably while the winter storm raged outside.

Finally.

Cried Rarity, "I am undone!"

"Woe is me," cried Rarity, "I am undone!" She rubbed her one remaining hoof against each of her three stumps in turn.

Anon scratched his head. "This is supposed to be sexy?"

Rarity scrunched her muzzle. "I'm a helpless mare whose limbs have been removed by a barbaric predator one at a time for meals. I thought humans liked carnivorous sex."

Anon shrugged. "I've never been into vore or bondage. My 'fetish' is loving relationships between equal partners."

Rarity scoffed, lay back on her red velvet couch, and put her hoof, singular, to her forehead. "Wheel me back to Fluttershy's, Anon."

The walk through Ponyville was delightfully cool and cloudless. The small cottage near the Everfree was an outpost of civilization this close to the forest. Once Anon closed the door and left, Rarity rolled off her couch onto the floor of Fluttershy's cabin. Nopony seemed to be home, so she engaged her horn. Three shimmering pillars of light sprung from her stumps.

She stood and went upstairs. "Discord, dear, it wasn't his thing." She paused at the closed door of Fluttershy's bedroom, and knocked with her one real hoof. "Discord? I'd like my legs back now, if you don't mind."

He (literally) stuck his head out of the door. "Give us a moment, Rarity. I've got this game all but 'sewn up' as it were." With a popping noise, his head vanished.

Curious, Rarity entered the room. Stretched out on the floor, Fluttershy was sweating as she twisted into an unusual shape. Even her wings were fully stretched out, each in a different direction. She grunted as she moved her tail to touch one spot on the floor, then smiled. "Got it. Your turn."

Discord's body looped around hers, over and under, and Rarity's limbs sprouted at odd angles from his torso. He nodded at Angel, who flicked the spinner with a forepaw, and held up the result. Discord read it: "Right rear hoof on blue."

Cherry Berry Visits Canterlot

It was sheer luck that Cherry avoided the changeling invasion of Ponyville.

It all started when she and Cherry Fizzy, her coltfriend, purchased a love seat from Quills and Sofas. They'd entered the drawing for a romantic getaway, gaining an extra entry for each hundred bits of the price. A week later, they received a voucher for a round trip by train, three nights at the most prestigious resort hotel in Canterlot, and a dozen meal tickets.

Their bags were packed within the hour.

Cherry Berry had been to Canterlot before. As a balloonist, she knew the best repair shops for star-spider silk envelopes were the Canterlot air docks of Fancy Shipping, Inc.

But this was different. She wasn't here on business, but as a tourist, with the stallion of her dreams. She luxuriated in the warm afternoon sun, clip-clopping down the Canterway with her neck resting against his.

"And the best part," said Fizz, " is there aren't any crises."

She nodded, dreamily.

The hotel had a view of the Royal Palace and the Balcony of Dawn. A wake-up call in the still darkness was part of their package, along with breakfast in the observation lounge. Safe and snugly warm behind Crystal glass, they ate fruit bowls while awaiting the sunrise.

Across the way, Luna, Princess of the night, stepped out onto the balcony and, gracefully bowing her head to the west, lowered the moon. Cherry and Fizz joined in the polite applause. Cherry remembered her from the night that almost lasted forever. And the spiders. Oh, the spiders. She shivered.

Then came forth Her Majesty Celestia. Lighting her horn and unfolding her wings, she raised her head from the floor to the sky. Her wings lifted, as if she were raising the sun on their thin, broad shoulders.

This time, the applause was thunderous.

As the noise of hooves died down, an older unicorn stallion with a telescope cutie mark and a tweed jacket said, "Be sure to come back tonight. After moonrise, we should have a wonderful view of the comet."

The day was spent looking at historical sites and eating away from the hotel. There was a book signing by Twilight Velvet, editor of the popular Daring Do series and a bestselling author in her own right. There was a harp / harpsichord / harmonica trio on the Plaza which was far more melodious than it appeared. There was an artistic kaleidoscope exhibition in a little shop down a narrow, curvy alleyway overgrown with ivy.

It was a truly wonderful day.

It was a truly terrifying night.

With the promised comet came an unexpected flock of giant cockatrice. There was running and screaming. There was flapping and cawing.

Cherry Berry felt almost at home, as strange as that sounded. She knew her lot in life was to see good things fall apart. In the art of far Neighpon, Cherry blossoms signaled death and endings. Why should her time on this planet be any different?

The observation lounge had become a statuary hall in an instant, and the lithovoric beast had started pecking at the glass immediately. The hotel, with its classic marble parapets and rotunda, was a prime target.

So, they escaped into the city. Buildings were not safe, but running with heads down was. Fizz pulled her down the alleyway they'd been at earlier in the day.

It turns out a cockatrice's petrifying gaze seen through a kaleidoscope was as dangerous as the unfiltered thing.

Cherry came to with a gasp. Her head felt groggy.  She looked around. A team of firefighters was pouring golden potions on the statues around her.

"Miss, are you all right?"

She turned back to the firefighter who stood beside her. "I guess so," she said, rubbing her head with her forehoof. "I was with somepony last night, his name is Cherry Fizzy. Is he still here?"

On the ground lay several statues which appeared to have been knocked over. It was a sickening realization to see chips and cracks where they had fallen.

There was a stallion's hoof, stone, broken off at the pastern. Was it his? She bitterly walked over to it, and picked it up in her forehooves. It could be his. In grey, it could be anypony's.

She gave it with reverent silence to the nearest firefighter. The minutes stretched into hours as she wandered the neighborhood, looking for him. He wasn't in the alley, or the nearest streets.

Out at Celestia's Academy, the grad students were using their applied knowledge to help. She morbidly stuck with one crew who was piecing together the shattered and cracked unfortunates of Canterlot.

"That's all there is," announced Bright Spark mournfully. The statue the team had reconstructed was of a mare, running away with a visage of sheer terror on her face. Her hind left ended at the lower thigh with a giant bite mark.

"If we don't potion her soon, the venom will have her stone forever," said Night Shine, hovering bandages near. "Be ready."

Fizz found Cherry hugging and comforting the broken mare an hour later.

Her name was Henrietta Farmington, a chicken herder from Mustangia. She'd won her trip from a radio contest by identifying an advertising jingle from a half-second snippet. Her hotel was not in the nicer part of town, and it was totally demolished.

"You could stay the night with us," offered Cherry, after the trauma nurse had declared her fit for immediate release.

Late that night, Cherry woke to the sounds of whimpered sobbing.

Henny was laying on the guest bed, delicately poking at her stump with a forehoof.

Cherry yawned, and climbed up beside her. They had cried so much in the afternoon that their eyes hurt. Now, there was a weird sort of quiet calm about everything.

"There wasn't any blood," said Henny, "just flesh as solid and sound as if I'd been born this way." Her hoof traced the concave shape of the bite.

Cherry slipped her own hoof over her guest's. "You're stronger than you know, Henny," she said.

"But what stallion would take me now? I won't even be able to trot after chickens, much less gallop!"

Maybe it was the crying they'd shared, or maybe it was the joy of being alive and not in pain, but Cherry felt freer in that moment than she ever had before. "Chin up," she said, and kissed her on the cheek.

Maybe it was the startled gasp that Henny breathed, or the look of surprise on her face.  "Some ponies will see a piece missing," Cherry murmured, and kissed her below the ear. "Some ponies will see what isn't."

She kissed her neck. What was she doing?!? "Some ponies will see the trauma you suffered, and they'll have pity."

With a gentle hoof, she rolled Henny onto her back and kissed the center of her ribcage. Henny let her, a puzzled expression on her face. "Some will see a mare who lived." She kissed her in the same spot. "Some will see a survivor." She closed her eyes and ran her nose down Henny's barrel to the cutie mark that was cut in half by the bite.

Henny breathed softly.

Cherry was screaming at herself inside. What was this? Why was she doing this?

With eyes still closed, she kissed the concave edges of the stump. Gentle pecks, swift and barely weighing anything.

She could feel Henny trembling beneath her lips. She rested her head directly on the stump, and sighed. "You are made to be loved, no matter what happens to you in this world. Three legs or four, you matter."

Henny patted her on the head. Neither of them said a word.

When morning found them cuddled together, it also found Fizz scratching his head at the sight.

They promised to write each other. Cherry and Fizz sold their remaining meal tickets in exchange for an appointment for Henny with a top prosthetist, and headed back to Ponyville early.

They looked at the love seat in silence, and the drying green slime surrounding the husk of a changeling pod. They looked at the broken windows and the photo album sucked clean and blank of loving memories of their first date, their second date, and the events they'd attended as a couple.

"That's the last contest we enter," remarked Fizz.

"Could have been worse," said Cherry, "we could have been stuck here in the invasion with one of a dozen consolation prizes."

Fizz picked through the overturned kitchen, and lifted a broken appliance from the mess. "Looks like we could use a new toaster anyway."

Bookworm Ate My Hoofsie

Her hoofsie was gone, this much Pinkie knew. It had gotten sucked into the void that had consumed the story they'd been in, and now her leg just... Sorta ended.

It almost looked like a drawing that had been partially erased, but that would be silly, because that would mean she was a drawing, which didn't make much sense.

But looking at the empty space and the incomplete lines made her tummy go funny. She imagined that the gap could be capped with something like, maybe, a seashell.

And there it was. A seashell where her hoofsie had been.

Toxic Thaumic Throughput

Twilight wasn't aware that certain magics had a cumulative toxic effect. To be fair, neither were most ponies, but then again, most ponies never dealt with the thaumic throughput of the Element of Magic.

At first, she thought she had the feather-flu. She was newly pegasus-winged, and had no immunity. But it quickly became clear this was no ordinary case. The finest royal physicians were brought in, and her life was spared with minimal organ damage. Her legs, though, were a loss, trimmed back entirely.

At first, she was depressed. It wasn't until Rainbow Dash showed her a sci-fi story featuring cyborgs that she got her second wind.

One of the commonly held misconceptions about Twilight Sparkle was that she is a scientist of magic. Wrong. She's an engineer of magic. She kludges together disparate spells, she doesn't follow the scientific method, and she doesn't think beyond surface intuition except when she's doing an assignment.

So, when she saw the CMC sledding that winter, she figured out a sled-style platform with a body cushion and leg-stilts to match her previous lifestyle.

Her first attempt ended with a bruised nose and wounded ego. She stuck with flight-only for a while, but her wings tired easily. Her second attempt had wheels.  It sufficed for use in her crystal castle's long hallways, but now she's trying something new with minotaur tech...

Pinkie Pie's leg - or what was left of it

Twilight Sparkle's horn glowed feverishly as she concentrated on Pinkie Pie's leg - or what was left of it.

"Ow, ow, owie, owie," whimpered Pinkie, clutching above the wound with her forelegs.

The wound began to seal shut.

Twilight realized, with growing horror, that this was the wrong spell. It was one of the only first aid spells she knew, but it was for sealing papercuts and scraped knees. It was sealing off Pinkie's leg below the knee, above where her ankle would be if it weren't in a timberwolf's belly.

Pinkie would be left with a perfectly healthy and smooth stump, with no scar or pain. Twilight glowered at the swiftly sealing stump, wishing to high heaven she knew how to make a growing spell work instead.

Pinkie held a funeral for her leg that weekend. It was more of a wake, except she couldn't present the corpse for a proper wakening.

A prosthetist from Manehattan took a plaster cast, and within the week, she was hopping all around Ponyville like before. Still, it was odd to take off her hoof at night, and to wonder what her little hoofsie was doing right now.

The night of the full moon, she took off her hoof with a scraping noise. "Huh, that's strange," she thought, and felt the bottom of her stump.

Rock.

It felt like rock, and it felt longer than it had before, slightly. Pinkie turned the light back on, and walked to the mirror. It was definitely rock, and it was growing...