The first thing that entered Angel Wings’ mind was a shriek.
She jerked her head up, but something was covering her eyes, obscuring her vision. She shook her head violently, and the skewed goggles on her face flicked off, flung into the distance below.
That was the second thing that entered her mind. She was high up above the ground, and her entire world was upside down. All her shaking and fidgeting sent her swinging, and she disjointedly flapped her wings. That only made the problem worse, and the way she was trapped more apparent.
Angel Wings let out a shriek of her own. Once her lungs were empty she panted hard, trying not to think too hard about how much her leg hurt, or the way it bent awkwardly at her hip. She hoped it was just dislocated.
The third thing she at last noticed was how windy and wet it was, as a gale bent and shook the tree she was hanging from while the rain soaked through her coat and into her flight suit.
“Angel!?”
The shrill, raspy cry was hard to hear over the deafening wind around her. It took a few pained seconds for it to register in her mind, and she knew who the owner was.
“Vapor?” she called back. “I’m stuck!” Venturing a glance back up, Angel looked past the tree, toward the sky. It was hard to make sense of from on the ground but she recognised the storm above, and remembered it was two smaller storms before. She then looked back down—up from her perspective—at bushes and smaller trees below. “Where are you? How are you?”
Angel Wings didn’t hear the answer, but instead a loud crack as the tree shook again, and the branch she dangled from bent as unnaturally as her leg. There was another crack before the base of the branch fell away, and the ground fell up toward Angel. Some of her Wonderbolts training kicked in and she prepared to control her landing, and while she managed to soften the worst of the fall she still landed in a heap with her injured rear leg sending a shockwave of pain along her back.
She lay there a few moments, whimpering and whining and covering her face with one of her forelegs while she teared up.
Breathe in, 2, 3, 4, breathe out, 2, 3, 4, breathe in, 2, 3…
Something nudged at Angel’s cheek and she jerked her head up again, but this time she came face to face with a gentle, if strained smile on Vapor Trail’s face. The pain in Angel’s leg remained, but it felt a little less severe.
“Still alive?” Vapor asked with a small laugh at the end. She offered a hoof to Angel, and she took it, letting herself be dragged up onto her hooves. As she came up, she stared at the most definitely broken wing hanging limply at Vapor’s far side.
“Just about…” Angel steadied herself by wrapping a wing around Vapor’s good side, along her shoulder. “Your wing—”
“I know,” Vapor interrupted. “It hurts like a horsefly. You?”
Angel tried to put her bad leg on the ground again, but she hissed and shook her head with even the smallest bit of pressure. “I think I dislocated my leg.”
Vapor nodded, and she looked ahead and around. “I think I see Parade Peak ahead. There’s probably some shelter where it gets steeper.” She turned her attention back to Angel Wings. “Do you think you can walk that far?”
Angel rolled her wings, the frontmost bends drawing little circles in the air. “I can manage.”
“Right.” Vapor. She pushed herself further under Angel’s wing and bore more of her weight. “I got you, lovely. Let’s go.”
They didn’t find a cave or camp, and where they were certainly wasn’t dry, but they had managed to find a little hollow in a steeper hill protected by a trio of trees that stopped the worst of the wind from blasting through.
Angel had torn off the fabric from her injured leg to assess it a short while before, and was now using the elastic material and a few sticks to secure Vapor’s bad wing to her side. As she pulled the makeshift bandage tight, the turquoise pegasus hissed.
“Not so tight!”
“Don’t act like a baby, Vape,” Angel said through her teeth as she firmly bowed and tucked the scraps. Once it was all done, she checked over her work. Right now, and as she was working previously, she was relieved to see there were still movements and some control in Vapor’s broken limb. “I know it’ll be hard to be grounded, but you’ll be fine.”
“Hatchling.” Vapor blew a raspberry. “You were the one crying—Ow!” Vapor caught Angel’s glare, and then followed her leg to a hoof pressing just a little too tightly to her injured joint. “Too much?”
“Too much.” Angel held the glare for a few moments to the space around the connecting joint where she applied a gentler pressure. “But I suppose I started it.”
Vapor tried to shrug, but with the bandages in place and her injured wing, all she managed to do was shift the fabric and wince. “I’m better at taking it.” She pointed at Angel’s leg with her chin, and Angel followed her gaze. The limb looked like it had been smashed with a rock from the odd colouration. “That doesn’t look good.”
“It’s bruised,” said Angel. “I’m not moving far with it, but it’s not that serious. Once the storm passes, I’ll be fine.” She used a hoof and a wing to pull Vapor close, and then encircled her with both wings when she sat down. She still felt wet and cold, but having two warm bodies in the space helped fight off the worst of the feeling.
Vapor looked skeptical, her frown still pulling her lips down. “If you say so,” she murmured.
Angel barely heard Vapor above the raging storm outside and above, and she responded by pressing her face into Vapor’s neck. “You’re here. I’ll be fine.”
The first thing that entered Vapor’s mind was the sound of a twig snapping. She barely had the energy to lift her head, looking out of the hollow.
It was wet outside. Water made the leaves glisten, and some stream or another exposed the shining mud between patches of grass and bushes. Angel was dimly aware of the fact it shouldn’t be shining, but it was.
She was also dimly aware of a blue face and garishly coloured mane peeking around some of the barrier trees, and her blue eyes met rubies.
The next thing that entered Angel Wings’ mind was the fact she was curled up, and entangled with a still very much asleep and very much snoring Vapor Trail. She tried to disentangle herself as quickly as she could, and Rainbow Dash’s snickering wasn’t helpful.
“I found them,” Rainbow bellowed, her head turned to the sky. She then turned back to Angel and Vapor, stepping into the soggy hollow. “I take it you two’re good?”
Angel wanted to smack Rainbow’s smug little grin off her face, but she was too busy fighting the urge to die of embarrassment first.
“Y-yes! I mean, mostly...” At last, with both her legs and her wings free, Angel was able to sit upright. “We need, um, medical treatment. My leg and her wing.”
Rainbow Dash nodded, and as she took in a breath to speak, Vapor rose up sleepily between her and Vapor, filling the latter’s vision.
“Morning, lovely.” She blinked a few times, her eyes not quite focusing on Angel. “Did we die?”
Angel, her cheeks turning as pink as her mane, didn’t answer right away. She Instead flicked her eyes over to Rainbow Dash who was doing an awful attempt at not laughing.
“I’m wishing we did,” Angel finally murmured as Vapor went stiff at the bout of laughter behind her.
