“I hate hospitals.” Rainbow Dash muttered, careful not to wake the other ponies around her. She was one of three ponies in Manehattan Hospital room 2B, and she didn’t even know why! Sure, her leg was sprained, but that would heal in few weeks.
A knock sounded at the door, startling Rainbow out of her thoughts. Her doctor was there, smiling gently.
“Good morning, Miss Dash! How are we feeling today?”
“Like I dragged my leg through Tartarus and beyond.” She groaned. The doctor nodded before jotting some notes on a clipboard.
“Well, you know what we’re doing now, right?” Dash nodded, since they had to do this every morning. The doctor folded his glasses up and put them in his pocket before moving to do his job. He prodded her legs, one of which made the mare cry out in pain, her head, her chest, and finally, her wings. He did this multiple times over, and still seemed like something was bothering him.
“Is something wrong, Doc?” Rainbow asked nervously.
“I don’t think so…” He looked up from the feathers. “Miss Dash, what was I just touching?”
“My wings, duh!” She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, I could see you clear as day! What, did you think I was going blind or something?”
“No, no, it’s just… ah!” Without a word, the doctor used his magic and wrapped a piece of fabric around the pegasus’ eyes.
“Wha-what are you doing?”
“Nothing to worry about, Miss Dash. Trust me, this will only take a minute.” She calmed herself down and gave the doctor the okay for him to go on. A few minutes later, he spoke up.
“Where did I just touch you?”
“Ha! It’s a trick, you didn’t!”
“No, I was touching your wings. Quite roughly, I might add.” The doctor pulled her blindfold off her eyes as he spoke.
“No way! My wings are way too sensitive! That’s not possible!”
“I’m going to go discuss this with another doctor here. You stay put.” With that, the stallion shut the door, leaving Rainbow to contemplate what had just happened.
About half an hour later, the doctor returned with a mare by his side.
“Rainbow, this is Natural Remedy. She thinks she might know what’s wrong.”
“Good morning, Miss Dash!” She said cheerfully.
“Is it something serious? Will I be alright? Am I dying? What---” A hoof covered the young mare’s mouth to dam the words that were spilling out.
“Listen, Rainbow Dash. I’m here to help, but first, I need you to tell me what happened.” Remedy removed her hoof from Rainbow’s mouth, and sat back with a pen and paper.
“Well, I was working on a new trick.” She began. “I was doing loops and flips and barrel rolls, it was awesome!” Energy filled her voice for an instant before she remembered what had happened after she had been awesome.
“Some wind came and blew me off course. I fell and hit the ground. When they tried to move me to the Cloudsdale hospital, I wouldn’t stay on the clouds, so they brought me here.”
“Interesting…” Remedy wrote some more things on her paper before turning back to the pegasus.
“Miss Dash, I believe your wings were paralyzed in the accident you had. It’s common among daredevils and ponies who are just too clumsy to watch out for what’s ahead of them. Basically, you can’t use your wings right now.”
“Wha-what?!” The mare jumped out of bed. Only now did she realize that her wings were completely limp on her sides. Desperately, she tried to give them at least one flap. The limbs didn’t move. She continued to try, smacking them with her hoof in an attempt to make them move again, but she didn’t even feel it. Defeated, she got back in her bed.
“Miss Dash? I understand that this is quite sudden, but there is hope!”
“How?” Rainbow looked hard at Natural Remedy. “How is there hope, my wings are shot! Dead! Useless!”
“Calm down! They aren’t necessarily ‘dead,’ as you put it.” Remedy showed a chart to Rainbow that made no sense whatsoever.
“Could you explain that to me?”
“Basically, each line is showing how long a pony with similar conditions to yours went without their wings. Finally, they were able to fly again.” Remedy put the chart back, and grabbed Rainbow Dash’s hoof.
“It’s not serious. You don’t have to come in for rehab, studies showed that that only hinders they’re healing cycle. In the meantime, you should get a home on the ground. Do you have any family that you could live with?”
“I don’t think so… wait. No, no, no, not her!”
“Is there a problem?”
“Well… there is one family member…. she was kinda’ kicked out.” Dash sighed.
“I… see…” The mare got up to leave. “In that case, look for a house for sale. Get a job, try to get along without your wings. I promise you, there are really good chances of your wings returning to health.”
“And if they don’t? Can you guarantee that they’ll get back to how they used to be?” The junior daredevil asked directly. There was a moment of silence before remedy spoke.
“No, I can’t.” She shut the door, and Rainbow was alone again.
“Come on, Rainbow! You can find a job in no time! You don’t have any bits, but you can earn them…” She went over this plan in her head, and quickly realized a flaw.
“But then I wouldn’t have anywhere to stay for a while. I could ask for a loan…” Once again, this plan was so full of holes and loose ends that she quickly abandoned it as well. Thinking for a solid hour, she could not come to any other plan. Sighing, she wrapped herself up in her blanket and snuggled into the bed, deciding there was absolutely no other way.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
TWO WEEKS LATER
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Wubs pounded in a house in Manehattan. Well, it was more of a studio apartment. Bass made the windows on every floor rattle and shake, each time the song hit a point of intensity, the residents of the complex braced for impact.
An alabaster unicorn was the one making all the noise. At least, everypony else considered it noise. To her, it was the sweetest music that a mortal pony could produce, and it was all hers.
Vinyl Scratch hummed along to the melody that the dubstep followed as she did the dishes that had begun to pile up next to the sink. She barely heard the knock over the bass and wubs, but she still heard it. Using her magic to shut off the music, she trotted over to the door.
“Sorry, I didn’t order a piz---” She stopped mid-sentence as she saw a cyan pegasus mare in front of her. A rainbow mane fell over her magenta eyes, and a rope was tied around her sides to hold a pair of wings in place.
“Am I seeing things?”
“Nope. Hey Vinnie.”
“...Hey sis.”