Barren Skies

Rainbow Dash never liked going to the doctor.

All the waiting was boring and the doctors were boring and the tests they so loved to run were all so unbearably boring. And she couldn't even manage to do anything else for most of it, the nurses constantly shushed her and told her that other ponies were trying to rest or told her to sit still and wait for what always seemed like forever. The minutes and sometimes even hours always dragged by, not giving her a single chance to do anything but sit around, wait, get pushed to the next room, sit some more, talk, and then finally do more sitting.

Not that she ever really felt any fear, of course. Her fear was limited only to the things actually deserving of it, which were few and far between. Even when one of her tricks went... in an unexpected direction, which happened more often than she wanted to admit, she always quickly recovered, got back on her feet, and readied herself for more. Nothing could break even a single part of Rainbow Dash, the most awesome pony to ever live! Or at least not permanently, never forever.

Yet here she was, sitting in the boring doctor's office, in a boring exam room. Just another boring check-up, but some off-hand remark to the doctor, so seemingly minor that she couldn't even remember what it was, and here she sat after facing down a whole... what was that one phrase Twilight liked to use? Barter? Batter? Batting? She mentally, and physically, shrugged, unsure of what baseball had to do with tests, completely distracted by the vocabulary exercise. She didn't have much of a mind for vocab, for the most part. But, though she hated to admit it, she did like the accuracy of fancier words. Or was that precision? Either way, she liked being right. And being more right was even better, right?

Rainbow lay back and unleashed a mighty "Uuuuuugh". So bored that her mind had wandered to vocabulary of all things. What was next on her slow but surely steady decline on the way down to a full-on egghead? Left alone with nothing but her thoughts, Rainbow Dash would slowly but surely be driven insane by the boredom. The only real threat to her awesomeness was never any crazy world-ending villain or anypony eclipsing her, but instead the simple doctor's office, with nothing to do in sight. She stared at the ceiling wondering when her torture would be over.

Tick. Tock. Rainbow sighed again and looked at the clock. A whole unbearable twenty-three minutes had passed since she'd been sat down in here by the nurse. She grumbled and thought to herself how quickly the tests had gone compared to this. In and out, all they had to do was stick a few swabs in some very uncomfortable places and draw a bit of blood. She even somehow managed to sit through some sort of weird magic machine thing. They always tried explaining it to her, but she never paid any attention. She only concerned herself with getting in and out as quickly as possible.

Really I should be more disappointed in so-called modern medicine, Dash thought, lifting her forelegs into the air to air-quote "modern". Stupid medicine, not being able to tell me anything until I get all these dumb tests done. Of course there's nothing really wrong with me, I'm far too awesome for that. But I've also seen a lot of really weird stuff, so maybe I caught something? Maybe from one of those weirdo changelings? Can you eat too much Crystal Empire stuff? I hope it's not something lame like... the feather flu or whatever. Being stuck in bed is not cool, not radical, and it's definitely not awesome. And everypony gets that lame stuff anyway. If I'm waiting all this time, it better be for something rare, interesting, and dramatic!

The door emitted the sound of a hoof knocking on it, prompting Rainbow Dash to sit up suddenly and try to act cool. "Finally!"

"Miss Dash?" The doctor, a light brown unicorn, walked in with a clipboard, same as he always carried, and quickly closed the door behind him. "Ah, I'm sorry to keep you waiting, the results from a few of the tests came in a lot later than we expected and—"

"Just spit it out, Doc!" she blurted out impatiently. "Please tell me it's something interesting, at least. I'm gonna die of boredom in here! Or worse, become an egghead!"

The doctor cocked an eyebrow at her last exclamation but forged ahead. "I'll cut to the chase then. Miss Dash, the tests that we have run indicate that you have a form of... Well, we don't know exactly since—"

She waved a hoof at him with even more impatience. "Yeah yeah, I'll read the discharge papers later," Dash said, knowing full well that she'd do no such thing. "Just tell me why I've had to do all these stupid tests!"

Doctor Horse sighed and placed his clipboard back into a pocket, looking back up at his patient for a long moment.

Dash bristled. "What? Gonna say it or not?" She hopped down from the bed and stepped into his face. "I've been waiting way too long for this!"

He stepped back and stammered out, "S-sorry, I just thought—" He stopped and gulped while Rainbow climbed back onto the bed, eager to hear what he had to say. "I'm afraid that you're infertile, Miss Dash."

"Huh?" Rainbow Dash's haunches barely clung on the edge of the bed and she almost fell to the floor before quickly scooting back further with a subtle flap of her wings. "That doesn't sound dangerous. Or cool, or radical, or awesome. Is it at least rare?" She was a bit confused, since she'd only ever heard that used to describe soil, never ponies, and she had a feeling it didn't mean she couldn't grow carrots.

He sighed again with exasperation and lifted his right front hoof into the air as if he were moving to facehoof. Rainbow Dash saw this and twisted her head slightly to the side, confused by the motion. He coughed awkwardly and set it back down on the floor. "It means you can't have foals."

"Oh, come on!" Rainbow Dash had no idea of how to react to this news, of course. Nopony does. "That's it?! Does that even matter? Isn't there magic for that kinda thing? Like how it can help fix a broken wing?" Unicorns had cast that particular spell on her more times than she could count.

"Unfortunately not, Miss Dash." The eyes of experience looked at her openly, with a slight frown etched into his features, almost looking like pity. Rainbow Dash didn't like that at all, she didn't want pity from anypony. She frowned and furrowed her eyebrows angrily and he quickly went back to a neutral look on his face. "I won't make the mistake of boring you with the details again, but you're essentially looking at total permanent infertility. And... I'm sorry, but this is unfortunately one area where magic cannot help. There have been many studies on this. Any attempts to do so..."

Rainbow Dash stopped listening before he even got to that point. Why bother? He'd already said everything she needed to know. In reality, her ears had developed a strange ringing in them that she couldn't explain. Her mind was, confusingly, almost completely blank. She stared at the wall behind him as he mouthed off about what exactly it was. It didn't matter, she could get magic to fix it anyway like it always did, right?

"Miss Dash? Miss Dash?" He waved a hoof in front of her face before using his magic to make a loud snapping noise. "Miss Dash!"

"Huh? What? Sorry, didn't catch that. But Twilight could change that with her super alicorn magic, right? Or Zecora, she's got a lot of potions and junk, I bet one of those could do it. Or even Celestia herself." She caught herself rambling a bit, the ringing noise thoroughly disrupting any coherent thoughts she might have.

Once again the doctor sighed at his patient. "As I just finishe—" He stopped himself and took a deep breath before continuing, "No, not in your case. There's nothing that can be done. I'm sorry, Miss Dash."

"Hah, you think I'd want to start a family? As if I could ever..." The ringing noise in Rainbow's head still oddly cleared it of any thoughts, and left her operating completely on autopilot. "So... is that everything? Can I go now?" Her words grew more quiet as she talked, trailing off into silence.

"...If you insist, Miss Dash. I'll let the front desk know, be sure to pick up your papers when you leave. We'll let you know if there's anything else, but your discharge papers will have everything you need to know right now." Doctor Horse took a moment to look over his spectacles at her nearly frozen stiff form seated in front of him. "Do read those papers, Miss Dash, or at least the instructions. For the most part you don't need to make any changes, except for a possible change in plans."

"Plans? Oh I already know that won't be a problem," the now unfrozen Rainbow replied, trying to inject some of her usual cockiness and chutzpah with a smirk. That odd ringing noise in her ears wouldn't stop, but she knew better than to mention that to the doctor. "Besides, I can always adopt, right?"

"Right you are, Miss Dash," he answered, looking her straight in the eyes with a smile. "I'm glad to see you taking this news so well. I've only had to tell a few ponies this before, but none of them were nearly this composed. Mare or stallion, nopony likes to hear their future being dictated for them like that. I wish you the best of luck." He offered a hoof to Rainbow, and she accepted the hoofshake with her usual strong grip, never one to disappoint.

Rainbow Dash stared past the doctor for a moment before her mind clicked, shooting back half-heartedly, "Yeah, well, I was never gonna let a foal weigh me down anyway, right?"

He simply nodded with an "Of course", then smiled at her again and sat up, heading back towards the door. As he left, he made a half-hearted offer of counseling, but Rainbow already knew she'd never accept it. He opened the door and exited, leaving the mare alone with her thoughts, as well as the sound of his hooves clip-clopping down the tiled hallway. She stared at the door for a long moment, unsure if her last question was rhetorical or not.

After a moment she shook herself out of it, stretching her body in the process. She stepped outside the room and took a deep breath before releasing it, heading down the long hall out to the front desk. As she passed by she collected a thick stack of papers, answering the receptionist's questions with the usual "uh huh" and nods. With the necessary papers secured, she walked out the door and started stretching her legs, ready to head home.

Rainbow Dash shook her head again as she lifted off, trying to clear that damn ringing noise. It seemed like it'd dissipate soon enough, but she was already tired of it. Flying usually cleared her head so she was sure a good flight was all she needed. Despite that, however, she was also far from eager to visit the doctor again any time soon, so she flew home rather uncharacteristically slowly and carefully. She also found herself oddly tired, though only a few hours had passed since she'd gotten out of bed that morning.