My side hits the ground, my foreleg landing right under the weight of my own body. The sound is like somepony cracking open a walnut.
Pure exhilaration.
I can’t feel anything, but wait, nope. I can and- oh crap, the pain.
The second feeling is pain.
I hear Pinkie Pie’s camera snap a few times before she bounces towards me, her straightened mane swishing in front of her face. She's giggling the whole time. “Well you really got it that time, Dashie!” She gives me a good look over, like she’s trying to dissect me with her eyes or something. “Tell me you got it.”
I hold my breath for a moment from the pain slowly enveloping my whole body, before answering the excited pony. “We got it all right.”
All of a sudden she started making all these weird movements like she was trying to reenact what had just happened for me. “You fell like Pinkie pudding! Like somepony dropped their Pinkie pudding!” Now she was just hopping up and down in place. “I mean you just went...splat!”
So vivid, that mare.
She’s at my side, holding onto my shoulder with a reassuring hoof as I try to pry myself from the ground, but she pushes me back down, a little too forcefully. “Hey, don’t get up, silly.”
My whole body is throbbing now. I sigh and laugh a little from the pain. “Not going to, Pinkie. Not yet.”
She brushes my rainbow mane out of my eyes and her face immediately changes from giddy to concerned. “Oh no, Dashie! Your bleeding.”
“Yeah, that figures.” That is one of the side effects of having a hard core fall. Blood, that is. I lift my head and stretch it to the left, then the right. Great, no broken neck. At least, not today. “Hey, at least it worked.”
She nods before rolling me onto my back to inspect my wings, making sure to put my foreleg to the side.There’s still pain, but not too much... that is, until she begins to stretch my wings out like they’re taffy. “Ow! Hey, Pinkie, I’m not aiming for dislocation here!”
She giggles, and lets go of my ruffled wings, letting them snap back into position. “Oopsy, sorry!” Pinkie prods at my spinal cord, but whatever she’s looking for she doesn’t find. “It seems your wings and everything else I’ve poked are just fine. Looks like only thing you broke was your foreleg.”
I swallow hard, and look straight out, since I really don’t want to cram my neck to look at her. “Yeah, that seems about right.” I examine my crooked leg which is laying next to me. I cringe, but I should be used to the way broken looks by now, I didn’t seem to be bleeding though. “Where’s the blood if it’s not on my leg?”
She rolls her eyes, trots in front of my view of the grass, and points a hoof right between my eyes. “Forehead.”
“That’s fine then.” I roll over onto my back, laying my broken foreleg on my stomach, but pain explodes as my leg comes in contact with it. Oh shit. My legs retract back to my side. I groan in pain.
A pink hoof lays itself on my stomach. I think I’m going to be sick.
Third feeling? Nausea.
I feel Pinkie’s hoof brush through my fur barely touching the skin. “Quit being such a baby! Now, where does it hurt most?”
See, Pinkie just doesn’t get it. She thinks that because I like to break my bones, I like the pain that comes with it. Just like Daring Do loves running into those snakes.
My head suddenly starts to feel groggy. I assume it’s either the impact of the ground from free falling off that cloud a few moments ago or the pain that just seems to be getting worse. Maybe both. “Everywhere.”
Pinkie Pie presses down on my stomach, invoking a shriek from my vocal cords. She nods and removes her hoof. “Definitely some broken ribs.”
I give her a dirty look and she just shrugs at me. I lay my head back on the ground and stare at the clouds frozen in the midday sky, starting to feel a bit dazed.
“How many?”
Pinkie taps her chin for a moment and puts on what’s supposed to be her serious face. “I think two.”
Let’s see two ribs, plus the other three I’ve already broken, so five ribs.
2 wings + 5 ribs + 1 leg = 8 broken bones.
211 more to go.
I try to hoist myself up on one leg, but instead I hit the ground with a thud and a welcoming package from the pain committee. I hear my supposed friend trying not to laugh her head off. I look Pinkie dead in the eye. “You gonna help me get up or not?”
She stops her giggling, sticks her tongue out at me, and folds her forelegs. “I don’t know, you weren’t very nice a minute ago.”
I groan in frustration as another spike of pain runs up my body. “Pinkie...”
She sighs and throws her hooves up in the air. I can hear the aggravation in her voice from me interrupting her show. “Fine, Dash!” She hurriedly bounces away. To where? I have no clue.
The fourth feeling is worry.
What will Fluttershy think? Will Nurse Redheart bug me with questions again? What if something is seriously wrong with my body and I don’t know it until it’s too late?
I hear a squeaking in the distance, I turn to see Pinkie Pie bounding up the dirt road. She’s pulling a pink, sparkly wagon behind her. Not only is it pink and sparkly, it has stickers and streamers everywhere on it. The words Fun Express are painted on the side.
I throw my good leg over my eyes, to shield them from the sight. “Don’t tell me you’re putting me in that.”
She drops the handle by my side and nudges my shoulder with her nose trying to lift me up. “You expect me to carry you all the way? Either ride in the Fun Express or you can trot to the hospital by yourself on three legs or you can just fly there”
I look at the long winding road, hospital was at least a good mile from here, if not more. If I flew the whole way there I wouldn’t be able to go very fast, it would hurt too much, not to mention I think the pain would ground me after fifty feet. Then I look at the colorfully painted, not to mention sparkly wagon. I sigh and prop myself up on one leg and grumble.“So not cool.”
“Come on, Rainbow Dash! Let’s go through the clouds this time!” Scootaloo chimed as I held her steady as we flew high in the cloudy sky.
“Whatever you say, kid. Just hold on tight!” I pushed myself higher into the blue sky straight towards a giant fluffy cloud. The filly in my arms had her wings buzzing, like always. With a ‘poof’ the cloud disappeared as we flew through it.
The tiny filly whooped and hollered in my arms. “That was awesome! Let’s do it again!”
I rolled my eyes and laughed as we twirled into another cloud. “Having fun?” I looked down at my now empty hooves. My eyes grew wide and I looked around wildly. “Scoots?!”
“Rainbow Dash!”
I looked down, and to my horror, saw a tiny orange filly falling out of the sky. I drew my wings into my sides and dropped out of the sky towards Scootaloo. “I’m coming!”
The air stung at my eyes, but I didn’t care, I had to catch Scoots.
Beep.
I have to save her.
Beep.
She’s falling.
Beep.
I’m not gonna make it.
Beep.
I wake with a start, jolting upwards. Terrible mistake. Pain shoots up my body as I throw myself back into my pillow. I look around and try to register where I am. White curtains, white sheets, and beeping machines meet my eyes. I groan at the pain at my side but decide to stretch away the tiredness anyway. Again, bad idea to be moving. Pain ripples up my side, making me cringe and press my body back further into the white bedding.
“You’re up.”
I turn to see a familiar white coat with a soft pink mane. She’s sitting there with her clipboard like always. “Hey, Ms. Redheart.”
She chews on the tip of her pen. “Have a bad dream again?”
I shrug at her only to receive a sigh in return.
She shakes her head at me before tapping her pen on her clipboard. “What in Equestria happened this time, Rainbow Dash?”
I try to preoccupy myself by straightening the thin sheets that cover my chest. “The ground hit me.”
She frowns. “You ready to give me an actual answer?”
I sigh and look up at the ceiling, all too familiar with the funny shapes the random holes made. “I was trying to do a new trick and I couldn’t pull up in time.”
I hear a bunch of scribbling before the tapping of the pen continues. “Well, you managed to break two ribs and and fractured your humerus.” She stood up and clicks her pen for the last time. She turns towards me and sighs. “You really should be more careful, Rainbow Dash. I love having company but not under these circumstances.”
I smile. “But I just love seeing you.”
Nurse Redheart rolls her eyes as she opens curtains, exposing the rest of the white room. “Oh, Celestia, what am I going to do with you—”
There was a soft tapping on the door. A small voice could barely be heard from outside. “Um, may I see her now?”
It is so good to hear the sound of her voice.
The nurse finishes latching the curtains in place and nods to herself. “Just a minute.” She looks me dead in the eye. “Now, Rainbow, I don’t care what kind of shenanigans you are trying to pull but you know she has better things to do then come visit you in the hospital.”
My heart sank as I look down at the tiles which made up the floor. “I understand.”
“Good.” Nurse Redheart trots over to the door and opens it. She steps outside and says something to the mare who was waiting. I hear hooves trotting down the hall as I see a familiar pony close the door behind her.
“Hey, Fluttershy.”
Fluttershy trots over beside the bed and sits down.
I see the look in her eyes. Oh shi—
An audible ‘smack’ rings out across the room. The first feeling I am able to register is shock, which doesn’t make any sense because I should have seen this coming. I lift a hoof up to my cheek. The second feeling is pain. A creeping pain that seems to slowly spread over half my face.
I smile faintly. “You didn’t have to hit me that hard this time.”
Fluttershy narrows her eyes and blows part of her black and pink mane out of her face. “I know this was no accident.”
It’s been seven months, two weeks, and three days since Fluttershy became my marefriend. She’s been able to really express herself around me and be herself. Which is why she’s only ever this open with me. I think she’d go into solitary just out of being embarrassed if anyone saw her actually speaking like this in public. The other ponies still keep teasing her about her dark lights in her mane, that is, until I get a hold of them. Besides, I think they’re cool.
The stinging starts to subside. I lay my hoof on top of Fluttershy’s. She’s giving me a this look that’s mixed with wonder, pain, and love. I know I need to stop doing this, for her at least, but I can’t, not yet.
I squeeze her hoof gently. “I’ll be okay, alright?”
Fluttershy lets her mane fall back in front of her face. “That’s not the point.”
I sigh and lay my head back. “You can’t keep me from doing this.”
The mare huffs. “You don’t need to do this.”
I look at my marefriend. Her big cyan eyes are glaring at me. It almost makes me feel fully guilty, almost. I shake my head. “I’ll wrap this up soon, okay? I promise.”
She throws her hooves up in the air. “When you're dead! Is that when, Rainbow?” Her eyes look to the floor. Her voice lowers. “I miss you when you’re in here.”
Ouch. That one stings. I nod slowly, my head starts to feel light. “I miss you too. Make sure you stay around Pinkie in public, okay?” I smirk. “She’ll tell me who I need to drop from a cloud.”
Fluttershy giggled. At least she’s smiling now. “Oh, Rainbow, you’re always so protective.” She laid her head gently down on my chest. “It’s so cute.”
I brush Fluttershy’s mane with my good foreleg. I feel her warmth on my sore chest and sigh inwardly. I can’t keep this up, not when it hurts her like this. I feel my heavy eyelids closing themselves. I see a familiar fillies face looking up at me. She’s falling. I have to catch her. My head feels so foggy. That’s the reason, right? It has to be. That’s right… That’s why.
