“Now now, don’t go too far Angel,” Fluttershy called out as she and her pet searched for berries at the edge of the Everfree Forest. An unusually cold wind blew through the pegasus’ pink mane, carrying with it a red hued leaf. While the forest never seemed to change, the trees near Fluttershy’s cottage wore orange and red leaves, showing that winter would soon be upon them.
Angel looked back at his caretaker before hopping off to his right, entering some bushes right next to the forest’s undergrowth. He wanted to have the perfect berries for a cake he and Fluttershy wanted to bake as a farewell gift before most of his critter friends went into hibernation.
Fluttershy started getting worried when, after five minutes of picking berries, Angel had still not re-emerged from the bushes. Putting the small basket she had down, she swallowed her anxiety and moved closer to the bushes.
“Angel bunny? I think we have enough berries, so, if it’s alright, maybe we should go home now?” The sounds of the forest answered her, none of them noticeably caused by her pet. “Angel?” Fluttershy parted the branches to see, to her relief that Angel hadn’t gone too far, and was trying to pull a plump cherry from another bushel.
“Oh, there you are Angel. I think we have more than enough cherries now, so maybe we should go home, okay?” Angel frowned and shook his head before turning his attention back to the bush.
“Oh, well, I know you want it Angel, but-”
Fluttershy was interrupted by a sound that instantly sent chills down both her and Angel’s spines. As her legs started trembling and her wings clamped shut in fear, Fluttershy slowly raised her head and looked into the scrub in-front of them, only to be looked back at by glowing yellow eyes... the eyes of a predator.
Before it could lunge, Fluttershy grabbed Angel and flung him as far as she could towards the clearing. Much to her relief, he landed barely half a metre away from the end of the trees.
Angel was the last thing Fluttershy saw before her world erupted in pain.
~~~ *** ~~~
“Please, we need to get there now!” Twilight shouted over the wind at the two guards pulling her personal chariot.
It had barely been twenty minutes since the young princess learned what had happened, and already she feared for the worst. Despite being stuck in a meeting with foreign diplomats, Princess Celestia understood what the look of horror on Twilight’s face had meant, and allowed her to leave immediately.
“We’re almost there, Your Highness,” One guard replied without looking back, the two pegasi taking Twilight’s plea as an order to accelerate. The outskirts of Ponyville were now flying past rapidly below them and Twilight’s destination, Ponyville General Hospital, was within sight. The grey clouds that loomed over the Everfree Forest looked set to start spread, hoping to bring their curtain of rain with them over the small town.
Unable to stand the knot of fear coiling inside her, Twilight leapt off her chariot and opened her wings, diving quickly towards the hospital doors. The concerned shouts of her guards were blocked out by the all consuming desire to be by her friend’s side.
Twilight landed, skidding to a halt just before the doors as the first drops of rain began falling, and burst through the doors. Every pony in the lobby turned and became shocked to some degree. Twilight Sparkle, one of the three princesses of Equestria, stood before them in no royal attire at all. A few ponies waiting for checkups actually bowed, though Twilight paid them no attention.
“P-Princess,” stuttered one of the nurses who barely recovered from Twilight’s entrance. “What are-?”
“There’s no time for that,” Twilight countered as her guards caught up. “Where is she?”
“Twilight, over here!”
Twilight looked up to see a familiar orange mare wearing her signature Stetson over her blonde mane, waving her over from the other end of a hall. Standing next to her was Twilight’s number one assistant, the young dragon looking like he’d been crying recently. Twilight wasted no time crossing the hall and embracing both of her friends while her guards stood within a metre of her on either side.
“How is she?” the princess asked upon releasing the hug, her answer given by the look in the farmer’s green eyes.
“Not too good sugarcube,” Applejack replied as she and Spike led her further into the hospital. “She only got outta surgery five minutes ago.”
Soon Twilight, Applejack and Spike came to a room on the second floor. Standing by the windows looking into the room were Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash; all were wearing sad faces but none more so than Rainbow. The three saw Twilight and gave her a group hug.
“Thank goodness you made it Twilight,” Rarity spoke up. “We started wondering if Spike’s message got to you.”
“Yeah, we know you’re super busy doing princess-y stuff,” Pinkie added, “but this was super-duper important, and even princesses have to drop what they’re doing for super-duper important stuff.”
Pinkie’s rambling brought a small smile to Twilight’s face, but that instantly vanished when she saw the faded blood stains on Rainbow Dash’s chest and hooves.
“Rainbow, what happened?” Twilight asked. Dash met Twilight’s gaze only for her eyes to fall back to the floor, not a single word escaping her mouth.
Applejack stepped forward. “Rainbow said she was headin’ over ta Fluttershy’s place when she saw somethin’. Apparantly ah Timberwolf was attackin’ her. Rainbow beat it back and got Fluttershy here lickity split. But...” She trailed off, looking into Fluttershy’s room, seeing her unconscious.
“Ahem, excuse me.” The five ponies turned to see a light grey unicorn stallion with a dark coloured mane and tail, wearing a doctor’s coat and a stethoscope around his neck. His coat, while a little large in size, didn’t obscure his cutie mark; a cross made of bandaids. “I’m sorry to interrupt Princess, but I’m Doctor Cure Glow. You’re all here about Miss Fluttershy?”
“Yes,” Twilight replied instantly. “Please, will she be okay?” All present save the guards leaned towards Cure Glow, praying to Celestia that he would deliver good news. The response was the doctor sighing and pulling out a clipboard with his magic.
“Despite the amount of injuries she sustained she should survive, though she’ll never be the same.”
“What do you mean by that?” Rainbow asked, taking a step forward while she stared at the doctor with worry-filled magenta eyes.
“Well-” Dr. Glow began, but was interrupted by Pinkie pressing herself against the room window.
“Girls, I think she’s waking up.”
No sooner had Pinkie finished talking did Rainbow Dash burst into the room, followed quickly by the rest of her friends as they saw Pinkie was right. There, with the white bed sheets pulled up to her neck, Fluttershy was starting to stir. Even with only her head visible, her friends could already see how bad the attack was; Fluttershy’s beautiful pink mane was now frayed and considerably shorter. A medical eye patch covered her right eye, though from its edges you could still make out the ends of a deep gash that ran across her eye.
“Oh my,” Rarity murmured to herself, bringing a hoof to her mouth while Applejack took off her hat in shock. Pinkie Pie was silent for a long time, a rarity for the young mare, as she looked on while holding an equally quiet Rainbow Dash. Twilight was about to approach when Fluttershy’s good eye began opening.
“W-What... happened?” A weaker than usual voice asked as her vision registered blurry grey shapes close to her. One glance at the bright light behind them forced her to instantly shut it, and her hearing was still a little fuzzy, rendering the sense nearly useless.
She tried opening her eye once more, but as she did so the memories of her ordeal came rushing back. Instead of the bright light and blurry shapes, she saw sharp claws, golden glowing eyes and red; lots and lots of red.
“NO!” Fluttershy screamed, shocking her friends as she tried squirming her way out of the bed. But doing so caused her to freeze in pain.
“Fluttershy, what’s wrong?” Twilight asked, raising a hoof to reach for the scared pegasus. Fluttershy looked her way but saw a bark-covered claw instead of a lavender hoof, and inched away only to fall off the opposite side of the bed. As Fluttershy screamed in both pain and fear, Rainbow Dash rushed out of Pinkie’s grasp to help her friend.
But she, like all her friends, stopped dead when they saw the extent of Fluttershy’s injuries.
Fluttershy’s left foreleg was held to her chest in a sling, while bruises and small healed cuts were spread across her body. Practically her entire right flank was covered in bandages, so the extent of that wound was unknown.
But it was her back that Rainbow noticed most of all, especially the bandage-covered stump where her right wing was meant to be.
Dread filled Twilight’s heart as she instinctively folded her own wings. Applejack and Rarity were at a loss for words and Pinkie’s hair lost its usual curls, falling flat past her face. Rainbow Dash just kept staring at the pony before her, her own cyan wings falling to her sides. Her friend... her best friend since they were fillies, a pony without a vile bone in her body, had been reduced to a broken shell, shuddering in both pain and fear on the floor.
While her friends were in shock, Cure Glow gently applied a sedative spell, soothing Fluttershy back into unconsciousness. Once the mare was under again, he took hold of her and levitated her over to the bed, where Twilight snapped out of it and pulled the sheets back for him.
Before he could draw them over Fluttershy’s body, however, a cyan hoof grabbed the collar of his coat and slammed him against the wall, holding him there to see an emotional face glaring back at him.
“WHY?!” Rainbow Dash roared, not caring how loud she was at that moment. “Why would you take her wing away? How could you even do that to her?”
“Rainbow, simmer down,” Applejack spoke up, though Rainbow paid her no heed. Twilight’s guards were about to step in, but a single extended lavender wing stopped them.
“How would you like it if somepony took away your horn? You wouldn’t like that now would you?” Before Rainbow could continue, a purple aura engulfed her and separated her from the doctor. Once it released her, Applejack held Rainbow Dash down from lunging at Patchwork again.
“Rainbow!” Twilight shouted. “This won’t solve anything. What would Fluttershy think if she saw you acting like this?” This seemed to calm the cyan pegasus down as she gazed at Fluttershy. Twilight then turned her attention to Cure Glow, softening her gaze. “Did you really need to amputate it?”
The doctor sighed. “I’m afraid we had no choice. The wing was severely damaged in the attack; there were nerve endings that were broken before repair, even with magic. And then there were the seeds.”
“Seeds?” Applejack asked what everypony else was thinking.
“Yes, we found tiny seeds buried inside the wing muscles.”
“Stun seeds,” Twilight gasped as her encyclopaedic mind began recounting everything she had studied about Timberwolves. “It’s a technique that Timberwolves use in case they aren’t able to... kill their prey in one go.
“While they bite down, they release tiny seeds into the victim. If the prey manages to get away, then these seeds will start draining the animal of its energy and start spreading and growing. If it isn’t removed immediately, then...” Twilight swallowed, but continued as her friends listened attentively. “There’s a chance that the seeds could grow out of the prey and encase it in a tree grown from its own body... at which point the Timberwolves return.”
“...Nelly...” Applejack sighed, and for a few moments the room went silent.
“Wha-What about the other injuries,” Spike asked as he stood near Rarity, who then pulled him into a reassuring hug.
“Well,” Cure Glow sighed, “her leg should heal in about a few months and the deep gashes on her flank might take just as long to recover. Even then, there will still be scars across her cutie mark that won’t fade.”
“And her eye?” Pinkie spoke up, tears threatening to overflow.
“It’s unknown how long it will take to heal, and I’m afraid there’s no guarantee she’ll be able to see out of it even if it does heal.” The other five ponies and dragon remained silent and after seeing the sadness in each of their faces, he sighed another heavy sigh.
“I really am sorry I couldn’t do more. If she were in Cloudsdale, they would’ve had more experience dealing with wing injuries. Even the Royal Canterlot Hospital has better equipment for pegasi than here.”
“It’s not your fault Doc,” Applejack replied, releasing Rainbow once she realised the pegasus wasn’t struggling anymore. “Y’all did your best.”
“Applejack is right,” Rarity added. “The most important thing is that Fluttershy is alive. For that, we are grateful.”
“We know you did your best Glowy,” Pinkie added, sporting a sad smile beneath her straight mane. “Remind me to give you a special next time at Sugarcube Corner.”
“I only did what I could.”
“It was more than enough,” Twilight stated, placing a hoof on the doctor’s shoulder. “I’ll be sure to tell Princess Celestia about your problems here.”
“T-Thank you Princess,” Cure Glow replied with a bow. “Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I’m afraid I have other patients to check up on.”
“It’s okay,” Twilight said. “We understand.” With another nod, he left the room.
Twilight turned to see Rainbow Dash crying, not moving from where Applejack had restrained her. Twilight moved over to the pegasus and hugged her tight, to which Rainbow replied with one of her own. Soon three more sets of hooves surrounded them as they found themselves in the middle of a group hug.
As rain began falling heavier outside, all five mares untangled themselves, moved to the side of the bed and leaned over, giving Fluttershy a light but compassionate hug. As they did so, not one of the five was dry-eyed as they prayed to Celestia for Fluttershy to heal soon, Rainbow Dash most of all.
