Author's Note

Warning For Self Harm in this chapter

Truth

Sparks swirled her hoof in the water. “It’s that simple. I am the reason I can’t fly.”

River ran her hoof comfortingly through her girlfriend’s mane. “Because you chose to fly past the flagpole and clipped your wing?”

“No...because I sabotaged my recovery.”

River’s hoof faltered. “Sparks. Did you...hurt yourself on purpose?”

A pinch shot up Sparks’s wing and she winced slightly and began to massage the tight muscles with her hoof. “Yeah. I did”

oOo

I spent a few weeks in the hospital for observation before they sent me home with strict instructions to stay off my wing and return for weekly check ups. My parents kept me home from flight school, from my classes, and from my life. I just laid in bed and counted the clouds that made up my ceiling over and over.

After a few more weeks, they took off the cast and started me in physical therapy. It was small at first, just flexing the muscles in my wing and practicing opening and closing it. After each session I would have to be rebandaged and strapped into a brace. The brace kept my bones aligned and supported my muscles as they healed.

I did everything they told me. I did the stretches, the exercises, the workouts. I pushed myself till I cried, till the stitches on my wing would ache and burn. And it still was never enough. Months went by and I got no closer to flying again. I could barely flap my wings without my vision going black from the pain. My progress began to stagnate. I stopped doing my exercises. I stopped trying.

One day as I laid on my bed and stared blankly at the ceiling, I felt an itch in my left wing. As I scratched with my hoof, a long beautiful flight feather drifted to the floor. I stared as it settled on the clouds. My eyes slid to the empty spot on my wing where the feather should be. I gritted my teeth and felt hot tears prick at my eyes.

I was never going to fly again. How could I? And if I wasn’t ever going to fly, what use were my fucking feathers?!?!

I felt the tears slip down my face as I grabbed a feather in my teeth and pulled.

It came away, breaking and dripping blood on my bed sheets. I reached again and bit off the top of another feather, leaving a jagged and clipped deformity behind. I screamed and ripped at my wing, tearing feathers to shreds as scattered pieces and drops of blood fell to the floor.

“Sparks!!” My mother burst through the door and grabbed me in her hooves, holding me close and pinning my hooves to my sides.

I screamed and buried my face in my mom’s chest, my tears staining her coat and my blood smearing in her fur. She held me tightly even as I beat my hooves against her and shook uncontrollably. After an eternity, my tears were spent and my body exhausted. Mom stroked my hair and cried with me as I slumped in her embrace and felt my eyes close.

I woke up some time later, once again tucked into a hospital bed. My wing was bandaged again, the white linen slightly stained from the blood of my feathers. I groaned and looked up to the ceiling. I could hear my parents talking to the doctor outside the door. I wondered distantly if my feathers would ever grow back after I had so violently broken and ripped them out.

My parents thought that I had caught my wing on the bed, or perhaps that I had fallen again, or that the brace had ripped off and taken the feathers with it. They didn’t want to believe that I had hurt myself on purpose, and I couldn’t bring myself to disappoint them with the truth.

oOo

As Spark’s voice died away, River realized distantly that she was crying. Sparks was looking up at the sky, her eyes tracing the constellations. River wiped away her tears and took her girlfriend’s hoof.

“I love you.”

Sparks smiled and laid back on the dock, opening her hooves for River to fall into them.

“I love you too.”

River’s long blue mane cascaded over Sparks as they laid and cuddled on the dock, looking up at the stars silently. The lake lapped at the pillars, filling the quiet night with the rhythmic sound of waves on wood.

“Did your feathers ever grow back?”

Seeking Sparks sighed and stretched out her injured wing, holding it up for River to see in the soft light of the moon.

“Yeah they did. But they always grow back broken and deformed. I really messed up the cuticles, and since then they’ve always come in clipped, ragged, and too small.”

River hesitated, then brushed her hoof over the broken feathers. “Is that really the reason you can’t fly?”

Sparks hugged her tighter. “It contributes to it. I probably would never have been able to fly again anyway. The bones and muscles of my wing are permanently damaged, and even still today they ache and have to be stretched. But by destroying my feathers and re-damaging my wing like I did, I squashed whatever small chance I did have of recovering my flight.”

Running River buried her muzzle in the soft brown fur on her girlfriend’s chest. “I’m so sorry my love.”

Sparks just smiled and pulled her in tighter. “I wouldn’t change my story for anything in the world. We moved to Ponyville after I got out of the hospital for the second time. And then I got to meet you.”

River snorted and sat up, pulling her girlfriend up with her. “And now you get to have the spotlight all to yourself, stir up the drama and the shock value every time the campers ask about your wing.”

“Oh! Excuuuse you! I have no idea what you are talking about!” Sparks huffed and kicked her back hooves in the lake again, feigning innocence.

There was a rustling behind her and then a hoof landed squarely in her back. Sparks shrieked as she toppled into the cool lake water, spluttering as she came to the surface.

“Sure ya don’t” River said, grinning down at her from the dock. “Payback for this morning.”

Seeking Sparks threw her head back and laughed, hoisting herself up onto the dock. “Well I guess I’ll just have to give you a hug then won’t I?”

“DON”T YOU DARE!!!” River yelped and darted away, giggling as Sparks chased her back through camp.

The two counselors ran back through Camp Friendship, their laughter echoing up to the stars.