Lightning Dust was always meant to be a leader.
Perhaps it was her bravado, or her overconfidence, or her complete lack of ability to admit defeat. Or maybe it was all of those things. Or maybe it was the fact that it took her more effort than anything else not to punch someone who had the gall to try and tell her what to do.
Lightning Dust was rarely ever a follower.
So why did she feel like
she was the one
being left behind?
She gnashed her teeth as her wing beat harder. She forced it back against her side, muttering an apology to Fiddlesticks for nearly smacking her with it.
“It’s fine,” Fiddle said absently.
Lightning pressed her head back into the pillow and tried to close her eyes. But something was pounding against the back of her skull, in time with the wing beats from her remaining appendage. “Hey, Fiddle?”
“Hm?”
“Do you remember, after the tornado, when that doctor told me I might have a case of that one thing… What was it? Ghost wing or something?”
Fiddlesticks blinked. “Oh. Uh… Phantom limb, was it? The one where you feel like your wing’s still there.”
“Yeah. I just… I remember how it felt like I could still feel it. And how it was like, itching and burning.” Lightning licked her lips, throat feeling very dry. It was never easy to talk about her accident. “I… It’s like I’m feeling that now, but… Different?”
“How so?”
Lightning paused to reach for the glass of water beside her. The water lapped against the sides as she raised it to her mouth, as her body refused to stay completely still. “Uh… I don’t know. With this wing, it’s like I can feel something pulling on it. Like it’s telling me I have to… well, go.”
Fiddle furrowed her brow. “Go where?”
“I don’t know! But it’s like… It’s like restlessness. Like…” She tapped her hoof against the bedside table. “Like something’s on the tip of my tongue but I can’t remember what it is. But I’m feeling that here too,” she said, pointing at her other side. “Even though it’s gone? It… It’s different from before. Before it was like my brain wouldn’t accept that it was gone. Now it’s like… It’s like something’s trying to call my wings, but half of them can’t pick up.”
Fiddle leaned in and hugged her. “Why is this happenin’?” she whispered.
“I…” Lightning hugged her back. “I wish I knew.”
It was late in the morning when she felt it.
News didn’t travel fast in Appleloosa, but Fiddlesticks had developed a sort of sixth sense that told her when something was wrong. Her pie tin slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor. She felt dizzy, and had to lean against the counter for support.
The nausea passed in a few seconds, but that didn’t stop her from wiping her hooves on the towel and racing outside to the porch. She stepped outside and saw a streak of red shoot into the sky.
For a second, the flare was alone. Then, another joined it. Then another. And another. And another. Fiddle was rooted to the spot as the distant scouts began firing their flares into the air: one after the other, each one a deep red.
She had never seen that many signal flares fired at once in her entire life. She often forgot what the various colors meant, but there was no questioning what a red flare was used for. Like a bat out of Tartarus, she tore off for the town hall.
Ponies were crowding the steps, shouting and shoving amongst themselves as they tried to barge into the mayor’s office. “Get back!” roared Braeburn from the top. “All y’all! Step back, now!”
“Brae, what the hay is goin’ on?”
Braeburn’s brow was creased in worry. “I dunno,” he said in a low voice, any hint of his usual cheer long since gone. “Can’t get a straight answer.”
“Mr. Mayor!” A suited earth pony emerged from within the office. “We’re getting word from the scouts.”
Braeburn accepted the message, and Fiddlesticks leaned over his shoulder to see.
PEGASI ARE ABANDONING POSITIONS STOP. WIND DISPERSAL NOT COMPLETE STOP. REASON FOR DESERTION UNKNOWN STOP. PLEASE ADVISE STOP.
“It’s the same from every post,” whispered the pony.
Fiddle’s heart skipped a beat. She looked up just as two pegasi flew above the town hall. With the sun against their backs, she couldn’t make them out.
“Downdraft!” someone from the crowd called. “What the hay is goin’ on?!”
“I… We gotta go, Jet!” shouted one of them. “We… We just gotta go!”
Fiddle turned and saw Jetstream in the crowd, hovering slightly above the earth ponies. She had always been an antsy, twitchy sort of mare who could never sit still, but something about her restlessness seemed unusual. Normally it was her ear, or her bouncing leg or her bad habit of tapping against anything she could reach. But today it was her wings.
The feathers seemed to tingle, and her wings almost seemed to lurch towards the sky, as if they were caught on strings like a puppet.
Jetstream bit her lip.
“Jet, where are they goin’?” said one of the other townsponies.
“Why are they leavin’?” asked another.
Jetstream began to rise higher. “I dunno!” she cried. “I just…”
Someone looped a hoof around her rear leg, trying to pull her back down. “What are you doin’?!” they demanded. “You runnin’ away, like them?”
“No! They’re not runnin’, they just–”
Another hoof, then another grabbed at her. “Stream!” shouted Braeburn. “If you know what’s going on–”
“Lemme go, I need to–”
Someone pulled, and Jetstream fell into the crowd. At the edge, several of the sheriff’s deputies were pushing their way towards her. But only a second passed until Fiddle saw her rising again.
Someone screamed, several others shouted. Jetstream was a blur now, swinging and kicking. She was shouting, but nobody could hear her. Before anyone else could try and stop her, she ripped herself free from the crowd. She cast a look at Braeburn, one that seemed to be mixed with guilt and confusion.
She turned and sped off, following the departing pegasi. A hush fell upon the crowd as they watched her go. Then, three more pegasi leapt into the air and followed her. Not a single one looked back.
Braeburn swore under his breath and began to tug on the brim of his hat, something he only did when he was worried. “What the hay is goin’ on, Fiddle,” he whispered.
Fiddle didn’t know how to answer.
“Move!” A familiar, strained and raspy voice shot out from the crowd.
Fiddle gasped. “Lightnin’!”
She tore off down the stairs, cutting through the sea of bodies like a fish through troubled water. She met Lightning Dust halfway.
Lightning looked frantic, her mane matted with sweat and her jacket sleeves rolled all the way up.
“What happened?” Fiddle cried. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” Lightning stuttered. “We were out on the ridge. White Lightning felt it first, I think, I don’t know, it just… I just… We all just stopped and stared up at the sky. Or the sun, I don’t remember.” She furrowed her brow as if straining to remember. “Then I… Someone… Someone said we had to go. And then they just. Left.”
Fiddle glanced at Lightning’s side. Her one good wing was twitching, like Dust Devil’s was. It was flapping erratically, as if she was trying to fly despite being physically incapable.
“I think someone grabbed at me and I pushed them off, maybe they… Maybe they wanted me to go with them. I don’t… I can’t…” She snarled and jerked her head to the left. Lightning Dust could be a great many things: an angry, bitter storm, an overconfident knucklehead, a leader who never faltered. But today, Lightning Dust was scared: and that was something that in turn seemed to make everyone else scared.
Because if one of the most steadfast, arrogant ponies in Appleloosa was shaken…
Someone in the crowd began to cry. Their wails snapped the others out of their stupor, and immediately panic set in. Ponies began to run: up the stairs to talk to Braeburn, towards their homes, or towards the General Store. The deputies stared at each other, unsure of what to do and praying that someone would give them an order to follow.
“Fiddle,” Lightning whispered. “I…” she swallowed nervously. “I feel it.”
“Feel what?”
“Like…” She snarled and jerked her entire body towards her right side as her wing increased its futile efforts to get her into the air. “Like I need to go with them.”
Overnight, it began to rain.
It wasn’t unheard of for the desert, but Lightning’s reports showed that there was virtually zero chance of precipitation with the current arrangement of clouds and winds. None of the non-pegasi weather office ponies could offer an explanation, no matter how much Lightning shouted at them.
One of them guessed that the natural magic of pegasi was causing weather anomalies. Another said this was surely a time of doomsday.
The two had to be separated forcefully by deputies, and Braeburn ordered the office closed and sent everyone, including Lightning, home for the rest of the day.
She climbed into bed and lay there with Fiddle wrapped tightly against her non-winged side, and the two stared up at the ceiling listening to the rain. Nobody in town seemed to sleep at all that night.
The next day brought more of the same. The entire town was shut down: nobody dared step outside into the rain. Shops and houses stayed boarded up. The train didn’t even come into town.
Braeburn returned at some point with a newspaper and a grim look. Fiddle and Lightning had reread the headline hundreds of times. They still couldn’t believe it. Every single pegasus in Equestria had flown away, forming a massive flock that moved like a twister.
More would join the flock every day. And not one could attest as to where they were going.
“Surely you’re not the only one without a wing,” Fiddle said. “There’s gotta be someone else out there in the same boat.”
Lightning shrugged. “You heard them talk about how easy it was to get prosthetics done these days. Even then… I dunno if they’d have any more answers than I do.”
They fell silent, listening to Braeburn’s voice flow in from underneath their bedroom door.
“You gotta give me more than that.”
“Consarn it, I can’t!” barked Applejack’s voice. “I dunno any more than you do right now. Twilight went off to Canterlot, and she ain’t talkin’ to nobody. Went up and shut herself in the throne room with Celestia and Luna. Ain’t nobody knows what’s goin’ on.”
That statement twisted a knot into Fiddle’s stomach. Lightning sensed this and hugged her tighter. She always hated making Fiddle nervous.
Lightning took a deep, shaky breath. “Hey.”
“Hm?”
Her wing began to flutter even faster. “I… I don’t want to scare you.”
“Honey, I’m already terrified,” Fiddle said with a sad chuckle. “What’s wrong?”
“If anything happens… If I…” Her wing slapped rhythmically against the mattress. “I love you,” she said with a whimper.
Fiddle turned, a sad look in her eyes as if she knew that
She couldn’t
Keep her
Forever.
“I love you too.”
The rain pattered against their window. “I’m scared,” Lightning whispered.
“I know. Me too.” They leaned in close and pressed their foreheads together, holding their breaths and waiting.
The rain stopped in the morning, and Lightning Dust was gone with it.
