It was a clear and sunny day over Ponyville, and Rainbow Dash was taking the opportunity of a nice day and time off work to enjoy the beautiful sky that she spent so very, very much time working to keep beautiful. Yes, her endless hours of labor and toil - why, she'd been up well before mid-afternoon yesterday! - were well worth the effort. Oh, and those other pegasus ponies, too, she noted as a weather squad team passed by above her, breaking down a small pack of altocumulus that were beginning to form. They sort of helped.
Fluttering around enjoying the weather teams' work was enjoyable enough, but Rainbow was beginning to get an itch to do some tricks. "Hey, Tank!" Rainbow called out to the heli-tortoise hovering lazily next to her. "Check this out!" The tortoise cheerfully... did nothing, and continued hovering.
Rainbow took off at a sprint some distance away, then flew back toward Tank. She began doing some simple stunts in the air near the tortoise. First, a simple aileron roll, which Rainbow Dash skillfully accomplished with barely a twitch of her primary flight feathers. Tank, quite impressed with this example of aerobatic skill, watched unresponsively.
Next, a barrel roll. Rainbow swooped around in a lazy arc, rolling and looping around Tank. The wake turbulence sent the non-aerodynamic turtle into a lazy spin, but he pulled out and watched Rainbow, approval evident in his blank, beady eyes.
Rainbow began to step it up, attempting some of her safer competition maneuvers for the benefit of the tortoise. Loops, figure eights, zigzags. Rainbow was beginning to regret the lack of clouds in the sky; some simple obstacles would have made this even more fun. She came out of a lazy (very lazy) eight and swooped past the tortoise, who regarded his beloved owner with an overawed blank expression. Over the next minute or so, a smile gradually crossed Tank's craggy face.
"Woo-hoo!" Rainbow cried. "Alright... Uh... Let's see." Rainbow thought for a moment for a really interesting trick she could demonstrate for her new pet. "I could do a Rainboom now, but I don't want to. But here's something I've been working on, it's a stall maneuver called Star Catcher's Cobra..."
Rainbow Dash made a beeline to a distant point in the sky, and Tank slowly rotated to watch. She began approaching rapidly, and gaining as much speed as she could on a flat trajectory. As she got near to Tank, Rainbow suddenly forced her wings to full extension and twisted her body so that her rear legs were pointing down and her front legs and head were pointing up, as if she were flying straight up, though she continued to sail forward, slowing quickly. She pulled her wings partway in so that the tips of her primary flight feathers were just brushing her side.
Star Catcher's Cobra was named for the Stalliongrad-born pegasus pony who had invented it some years before while working as a coach for the Wonderbolts. It was both visually impressive - when done right, the pegasus pony who did it resembled a rearing cobra with fully extended hood, hence the name - and dangerous and difficult to perform. It had become a standard competition maneuver in the years since, and Rainbow had been practicing it to improve her routine in preparation for her next chance to perform for the Wonderbolts.
The execution was flawless, and Rainbow Dash crowed into the sky as she began to extend her wings again. Unfortunately, she had not noticed that her trick had taken her into the path of a flock of migratory geese. Tank coughed quietly in warning, but it was too late for Rainbow and the geese, and Rainbow Dash was battered by three large birds who flew directly into her wings. There was a nasty crunch and the cyan pegasus screamed as she fell from the sky. Tank popped his head into his shell, popped back out again with his goggles on, and tore through the sky, down after his injured and terrified owner...
"Twilight, come quick!"
The door to the Ponyville library burst open, right in the face of a small purple dragon laden with books and lunch. Paper and gems flew everywhere as a large orange earth pony in a Stetson barreled into the main room of the library.
Twilight Sparkle, a purple unicorn and manager of the library, dropped her spell in alarm, and another load of books, previously suspended in the air in a glowing purple aura of magical energy, fell to the floor, landing directly on top of the dazed dragon.
"Oh no, Spike! Applejack, what's wrong?!" Twilight cried, unsure of which issue was more pressing.
Applejack was flustered and out of breath. "Twi, we gotta go to the doctor's office. Rainbow's been hurt! They say she's gonna lose her wing!"
A small voice came from the open door, as a butter yellow pegasus trotted up to the library. "Um, Applejack, I don't-"
Fluttershy was cut off sharply. "What?!" shouted Twilight, hurriedly. "AJ, let's go get Rarity and Pinkie and get over there! Come on, Fluttershy!"
"But, Twilight, there's not-"
And then the three were gone in a burst of purple magic. The library was empty and silent, except for the groaning baby dragon slowly extricating himself from a heap. So, in fact, the library was neither empty nor silent, though it did try its best.
Minutes later, five small bursts of purple magic deposited five agitated ponies in the waiting room in the Ponyville clinic, severely startling the two older ponies already waiting there, the nurse, and the three tropical fish in the clinic's fishtank.
"-t, if you would just wait-"
"Not now, Fluttershy!" Twilight yelled, agitatedly, as she stormed up to the nurse's desk. "We're here to see Rainbow Dash."
Nurse Redheart nodded, sympathetically. "She's been moved to a private room. 210. Please follow the red line on the floor."
Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Pinkie Pie's huge bundle of mylar balloons ran off in the direction the nurse gestured, while Fluttershy trotted after them. "I think maybe-"
Rainbow Dash was lying back in her bed in the sterile clinic room, rear legs crossed. Her right wing was folded next to her, bound in a pressure bandage that wrapped around her torso. Her left - what was left of it - was elevated. Up to the first joint, it was held in a brace, many of her feathers removed to allow the brace to function... The rest of her wing was missing, replaced with a bandage that had been wrapped around the joint. Rainbow's brightly coloured mane was disheveled, and she looked exhausted.
A tentative knock came at the door. "Rainbow Dash?" Twilight's voice came, softly.
"Oh... Hey, Twilight," Rainbow responded, raggedly. "Come on in."
The door opened, and Rainbow Dash's friends began filing in quietly, before Pinkie Ran in with balloons, bowling everyone over. "RAINBOW DASH!" The pink pony shrieked. "Oh no, your wing!" Pinkie Pie began crying loudly as she affixed the mylar balloons to Rainbow Dash's bed.
"Uh... Hi, Pinkie Pie?"
Rarity walked over and gently hugged Rainbow Dash, being careful not to squeeze too tightly or touch anything severely injured, like the severed wing. "Oh, my, Rainbow... I am so sorry. You look simply awful! If there is anything I can do to help..." She turned away and hid her face under her foreleg as her mascara started to run.
"Oh, come on, I don't look that bad." Rainbow Dash started to wear a slightly affronted and, more importantly, confused expression. She reached back and slicked her disheveled mane back, uncomfortably, wincing slightly as the motion caused tension in the muscles in her damaged wing.
"I'm- I'm powerful sorry about what's happened to you, sugarcube," Applejack began, clearly doing her best not to start crying. "If you need a place to stay when they let you out, you're always welcome at Sweet Apple Acres-" Applejack, too, walked away, moving her hat to cover her face as she began to cry.
Rainbow Dash adjusted her position in bed, crossing her arms in annoyance. "Okay, just what is going on? What are you all so upset about?"
"Rainbow Dash, I don't think-"
"Oh, hey, Fluttershy," Rainbow said, smiling and waving at the only other pony in the room who didn't look completely distraught. Fluttershy blushed and clamped her mouth shut, again.
"Rainbow Dash, it's okay," Twilight said, gently. "You don't have to put on this brave face for us. We're your friends, and we're here to support you while you adjust."
"Oh, jeez, Twilight, this is about the wing, isn't it?" Rainbow Dash snickered. "It's cool! I'm just gonna ask for a few weeks off from the weather team. I'll be out of here tomorrow and then I'll have a month of just relaxing in front of me. Other than not being able to fly, everything is awesome."
Twilight's reassuring smile quavered as she listened to her friend being unable to confront reality. "But... Rainbow... What about when your month off is up?"
"I... go back to work?" Rainbow Dash replied. Was this a trick question?
"Twilight, you're not listen-"
"Fluttershy, please don't interrupt!" Twilight snapped. Twilight Sparkle then deflated, and collapsed on her rear on the floor, covering her face with her hooves as she joined the others in crying.
"Alright," Rainbow Dash said, her voice edgy. "Would somepony please tell me what's going on here?"
Fluttershy piped up, softly. "Rainbow Dash, I-I don't think they know that pegasus wings grow back."
