The CMC were sent home early that day, and Scootaloo wasn’t sure if she would ever understand exactly why. Somehow, Sweetie Belle had discovered a school secret, no, the biggest school secret ever while they were in the middle of being reamed by the principal, and it was under the principal’s desk!
After the principal had to climb over her desk to get away from where it had been slid to the side of the wall, she took one look at the staircase leading downward, and the three curious fillies peering down its depths, and immediately herded them out of the room.
Was that like, doubly in trouble, when you get kicked out of the office you got sent to for getting in trouble?
The principal hadn’t seemed mad, just... frightened. She actually apologized to them, and said that they should take the rest of the day off while she tried to find a way to deal with this new development. Scootaloo didn’t get it. Why wasn’t Celestia mad? Scoots knew she would have been mad if someone had discovered their new secret clubhouse. So why wasn’t the principal mad when they discovered her secret staircase?
Then again, Scootaloo would have been mad when Big Macintosh discovered their old secret clubhouse, but she had been way too frazzled at the time due to transforming into a little pony, so maybe it was something like that?
One thing Scootaloo couldn’t complain about though, is getting out of school early. She tried not to feel too relieved, as the three of them sat in the back seat of the Apple’s big green pickup, while Granny drove them back to the farm, grumbling the whole way about not raising no hooligans. After kicking them out of the truck (natch) and giving them the evil eye, Granny said not to do nothing, and that she was gonna get to the bottom of this. Then she pulled the truck out of the front yard and went back down the road to Canterlot High.
“So... we’re supposed to do something?” Sweetie Belle asked in a bit of shock, standing out in front of their house there.
“Whadya mean, Sweetie Belle?” Apple Bloom replied in confusion.
“Well,” the candy white unicorn pondered, “Granny said not to do nothing. So doesn’t that mean to do something?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom said, rolling her eyes. “That just means to especially do nothing, not no how, not no way!”
“But ‘not nothing’ is something!” Sweetie protested.
Apple Bloom shook her head, arguing, “No way! ‘Not nothing’ is extra not nothing!”
And Scootaloo saw Rainbow Dash soaring overhead.
While her friends started arguing, or... not arguing (Scootaloo wasn’t sure), Scootaloo thought she finally saw Rainbow Dash soaring overhead. Scootaloo actually hadn’t seen Rainbow Dash flying before, or even learning to fly, which was really frustrating. It wasn’t just that Scootaloo was always being kept busy with school. Dash had been so excited when her feathers were coming in, so why was she being so secretive about her flying practice?
Scootaloo had been worried that Rainbow Dash was trying to make her feel better, by not trying to one-up the little orange pegasus in flying skill. But the truth is, there weren’t any feelings in Scootaloo that were going to be hurt. Scoots already knew Rainbow Dash would be a natural at it, and she wanted to see her being amazing. Scootaloo didn’t feel even a little bit self conscious. Now that she finally got to see Rainbow Dash finally in the air, high overhead from where she’d leapt from the roof, a smile grew on Scootaloo’s face.
Scootaloo’s smile turned to an expression of horror, as Dash’s soaring soon turned to flailing in mid-air, and falling, and then crashing hard into a set of bushes that didn’t look like Rainbow Dash’s original destination. Alarmed, Scootaloo ran away from her friends, galloping over to the bushes where a rainbow maned head was emerging, groaning in pain.
“Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo shouted, “Are you alright? What happened?!”
As soon as Rainbow Dash heard her, Dash froze in place, then turned slowly to face Scootaloo with a nerve wracked smile on her face.
“Oh, hey Scootaloo!” she said with that fake smile, “This isn’t what it... looks like. I was just testing theshe bushes to see how they uh... landed on.” Rainbow Dash’s mane was full of leaves and twigs, and she had a rough spot on the side of her cheek, where her face had planted in the dirt. “Aren’ you sh’pposed to be in... school?”
“We got in trouble, in trouble, and Granny took us home early,” Scootaloo said warily, raising a cautious forehoof and looking over her big pegasus friend. “You were... testing the bushes?”
“Yep, definitely not good landing material,” Dash said confidently, walking out of the bushes and trying to hold back a hiss of pain as her left foreleg hit the ground. Walking on three legs, she hobbled away from Scootaloo. With her brilliantly colored tail drooping, she looking a lot more ashamed than she should have ever looked.
Scootaloo snapped out of her dumbfounded paralysis, and trotted after the larger pony. Rainbow Dash seemed so embarassed, and everything about Scootaloo was making it even worse, even the stupid dress she was wearing! The fact that (like most ponies here) Rainbow Dash was totally naked made Scootaloo keenly aware that she had a brown dress on. She tried not to draw attention to it but Rainbow Dash just seemed really vulnerable like this. Why else would Rainbow Dash be acting so weird and embarassed?
Saying, “What was that? You totally crashed and burned! Didn’t you jump off the roof?” Scootaloo trotted alongside the limping pegasus and tried not to trip on her own dress, looking up at her hero with big, worried eyes.
“Leave me alone!” Rainbow Dash replied tensely, “I’m fine! I just had a bit of a shlip-up an’ I’ll figure it out any day now.”
“You... you said you had flying figured out, though!” Scootaloo retorted, both worried and hurt by that.
“I do!” Rainbow Dash said desperately, “I jus’ have to figure out how to... you know, stay up there. I’m doing fine, and I’ll be a—a good flyer before hyou know it!”
“Please, Rainbow Dash,” Scootaloo said, trying to follow along with the pony. Rainbow Dash was just going... any way she could, to get away from others. To get away from Scootaloo.
Scootaloo followed Rainbow Dash over toward the cattle pasture, increasingly distressed as she said, “What’s wrong? I thought you had this whole flying thing beat! Have you been doing this every day? Maybe you’re tiring yourself out too much! C’mon Rainbow Dash, what’s wrong? It can’t be because it’s hard, because all I do is flap and I can pull myself up into the air. Rainbow Dash, why are you running away? Rainbow Dash!”
Why was Dash ignoring her? Scootaloo was so—
Scootaloo scrambled back in shock as Dash rounded on her. There were genuine tears in the blue mare’s magenta eyes, as she shouted angrily at the little filly, “I can’t. Fly! Okay?”
Dinky recalled the time that she’d told him.
“I was lucky enough to remember seeing your counterpart in Ponyville,” Twilight had said to Dinky Doo.
“My what, in where?” Dinky had replied cluelessly.
“Well I come from a... alternate universe, so to speak,” Twilight told Dinky in private confidence earlier that month, in one of those conference rooms in the back of the library... with the sound proof walls. “That appears to be erm... leaking into your own. Each one of you has a counterpart in my world. Unfortunately I don’t know everypony in my world, but those such as yourself, I do remember.”
“Is this a joke?” Dinky asked, looking around the plain white room for cameras.
“No joke,” Twilight answered quickly, “And you don’t have to believe me. I just want you to be aware, so that when the time comes, if the time comes, you won’t be caught completely off guard. I can’t do that with everypony, and with you, it’s the least I could... the least I could do.”
Trying to digest the purple girl’s words, Dinky asked, “Why do you keep saying ‘everypony’?”
“Because in my world, everyone’s a pony,” Twilight answered. “That’s the reason, I suspect, people are turning to ponies here. Some sort of... leak I suppose. The fact remains that you’re each transforming to the physical analog of your pony counterpart in my world. And I don’t know everypony in my world, but those I do, I can warn their counterpart here what kind of pony they’re likely to end up being, if this phenomenon continues to accelerate.”
“Warn them?” Dinky asked, “As if being a pony isn’t bad enough? What kind of pony do you think I would change into?”
Twilight seemed nervous about this saying, “I-it’s not always the most pleasant news. I mean you all want to stay as you are obviously, but considering the... thing you have with Diamond Tiara, it’s kind of... important.”
Dinky didn’t like the sound of that.
“In my world,” Twilight said seriously, “I know of a mare named Ditzy Do. She’s a very kind pegasus mare, who on occasion delivers my mail.”
The implications of that were way too heavy to take in all at once, so Dinky had blurted out, “You mean the drama girl?”
Twilight blinked at that, saying, “The who?”
“There’s a dramatist...” Dinky said uneasily, “A drama major named Ditzy Do. My roommate Written Script mentions her a lot. Says she’s good at destroying things.”
“She’s grey and blonde, with golden eyes that don’t go the right way?” Twilight prompted.
Dinky blushed at that, saying, “I don’t know that he mentioned what she looked like... you might just ask?”
“I might just do so...” Twilight said ominously to herself.
“But isn’t that Ditzy’s counterpart? What does that have to do with me?” Dinky asked in confusion. “I’m Dinky Do, not Ditzy Do. Wait you don’t mean...”
Twilight gave a grimace of a smile and said, “Yes, in my world, Ditzy is your... uhm... mother. I learned about you mostly because Ditzy loves to talk about her daughter. Though there was the muffin incident...”
“Daughter?” Dinky asked faintly.
“Yeah, um...” Twilight swallowed, “Sorry.”
Dinky mumbled, “So I’m going to change into a pegasus...”
“Unicorn.”
“Mare.”
“Filly.”
Dinky had a sinking feeling, asking “What do you mean by filly?”
“Well out of diapers, obviously, but roughly the age of seven?” Twilight replied. “Ponies age differently from humans, but seven is about right by the human time scale. So that would put her, by your school system, roughly in... second grade of elementary school.”
“And she’s a... she?” Dinky asked uneasily.
Twilight nodded. “About half of the males undergoing this transformation have... become female. It’s just whatever your counterpart is, and pony females statistically outnumber the males, 3 to 1. So what I’m saying is... if you transform into a pony, you’re likely to transform into a young unicorn filly, and you should prepare as such. I don’t know what consolation I can give you, but at least you’ll know.”
“How could... my counterpart be female?” Dinky asked in sheer disbelief. “What says who is your counterpart? What could be so different between our worlds that makes me a guy?”
Twilight paused at that, before asking curiously, “Aren’t you more concerned about what makes her a girl?”
“That’s not the same thing?” Dinky replied cluelessly.
“No, it... just something I’ve been noticing,” she said thoughtfully. “You don’t want to be a girl, do you?”
“A little late if I did,” Dinky grumbled bitterly. Then realizing what the girl was asking he said, “Wait no, I don’t. Why would I want to—you know what I’ve done, right?”
“...yes, I’ve been told,” she said reluctantly. “I don’t judge you for it at all. You’re still a... decent boy, I suppose? But I get the impression you’re not exactly happy with the situation.”
“Of course not,” Dinky replied, an unusual amount of emotion creeping into his voice as he said, “I don’t want any of this! I don’t want her to be pregnant. I don’t want to be the one who caused it. I don’t want to be... to be dangerous like this. Girls and even guys think I could hurt them, like I hurt... her.”
He took a shuddering breath. “I just don’t want to feel like this,” he said, wiping at stubborn tears coming unbidden to his face.
“Like what, exactly?” the practically persistent girl said. Dinky looked at her, suddenly paranoid. She couldn’t be trying to do that with him, could she? He hated the joyous hope that rose in him at the prospect of that. He was supposed to be Diamond Tiara’s boyfriend!
“It’s nothing you’d want to hear,” he grumbled, turning away. “Just stupid guy stuff.”
“That’s what I’m curious about though,” she replied. “What sort of ‘guy’ stuff has been bothering you? It just seems like a lot of guys around here are bothered by um... ‘guy stuff’ so I’m curious.”
“Well,” he said somewhat resentfully, “When I act on my desires, bad things happen. What’s wrong with not wanting that? You don’t know what it’s like; what it was like. I’d look at her and just... want it. I’m not used to feeling that way. I’m just a kid!”
Dinky’s head dipped enough for his blonde bangs to fall in his eyes as he said, “I was a kid at least. But then this happened. And now I don’t get to be a kid. I just have to be a... I d-don’t want to be a father I want...”
He couldn’t tell her what he wanted. He wanted a woman holding him, surrounding him, enveloping him in her gentle embrace, whispering to him that everything’s going to be okay. And he couldn’t have that, because guys who want that stop being able to control themselves, and end up as fathers.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Twilight said in confused apology. Dinky tried to pull himself together for her sake, so she didn’t have to see him making a fool out of himself. It felt... far too easy to calm himself.
Taking another deep breath, Dinky said, “It’s fine. I just have a lot to deal with now. No matter what problems I have with being a guy, I have to be, because Diamond Tiara is... pregnant, and I have to l-live up to th–that...” Okay maybe not too easy. “It’s out of my hands now,” he bit out tightly. “I have to be a guy, end of story.”
“Uh...” the girl said with a very conflicted grimace that might have passed for a smile. “I did come here to inform you that you’d probably be transforming into a young unicorn filly. You understood that, right?”
“Yeah, but what—” Dinky froze. Let it never be said he was swift to the draw, but the implications of this crazy thing finally hit him. He couldn’t be a guy. He might be physically unable to be a child’s father. This was terrible!
“But what if Diamond Tiara has a baby?” he asked looking at the purple girl in terror. “Who’s going to be the father? I can’t abandon it! I’m not gonna make Diamond have to do what my... my mom did! I’m really gonna be a... a little kid? And a girl? How would I even... how would we even care for... dammit!”
Well Twilight was no help, and really Dinky didn’t think anyone could be of much help with this. He might as well just be alone, then. He took a breath in the relative quiet, looking around where he was. The roof was a good place to go for some peace and solitude. You weren’t supposed to come up here, but whatever. Dinky didn’t really care anymore.
He leaned on the railing, looking at the students moving around far below, not really seeing them. It was nice to be able to get away from the other kids for a while, but it was so hard not to think of stuff up here. Stuff Dinky didn’t want to think about. What that girl had said to him, how it was probably totally true.
He cursed himself for his stupid reaction to her revelation. It wasn’t what a high schooler would do, at least not a boy one. But after realizing he couldn’t be a father at all, he just couldn’t hold it all in, and was soon making a teary eyed fool of himself for no reason at all.
Twilight Sparkle then actually got up and tried to hug him! He jerked away from her, pushing her hand away. He didn’t want to do it to her too! She’d never let him. He didn’t want her to let him! Even if it would feel really good. What was he even thinking? Did he have to feel like this about every girl now? Was there something wrong with him? Other guys said things like that about girls all the time, so why didn’t Dinky want... to do what he wanted?
He sighed, pushing away from the railing and stepping lightly toward the roof access doors. He preferred when it was the other kids who were attacking him; it didn’t hurt as much.
Rainbow Dash was in huge trouble. This was a total disaster! Nothing she did seemed to work! Talking? Easy. Walking? No problem! But flying?
She groaned, crawling out of the mud pit she’d nose dived in. Why were farms so dirty? It was getting all over her wings! And the rest of her too. The polychrome pegasus plodded stolidly to the nearby creek, where she knelt in the cool water on four legs, and tilted a wing down to splash water on herself. Rainbow wasn’t sure if you used hooves or wings for that, but by kind of hugging her own body she could use a hoof to loosen the dirt that would otherwise become encrusted to her wings, the creek water rinsing it cleanly away.
That didn’t do any good though. Rainbow looked at her wing in despair before sort of folding it and stalking away from the riverbed. Once she was in the sun dappled clearing again, Rainbow spread her wings, just like that one pegasus had told her you do it. That pegasus had heard it from her friend, who got it from a pegasus who was actually flying, so it definitely was how you were supposed to move a wing.
Pegasi, Dash learned, didn’t need to be as aerodynamic because these magic airfoils would extend from their wings, and they could control their weight pretty much at will. Some pegasi found that terribly amusing, making the scale go up and down as they stood still upon it, or chattering about how they always meant to lose some weight but never figured this was how they were going to do it. Rainbow Dash wasn’t quite as impressed, but it definitely made getting up in the air easier. You had to sort of... let go of the ground, that’s what it felt like, and then Rainbow Dash would be bouncier and flutterier just like magic. Well, literal magic.
It wasn’t hard to use her wings. In fact, it was hard not to. She wasn’t exaggerating about fluttery. She felt like her wings were on a hair trigger, not that she knew what it was like when they weren’t. They were just so twitchy and itchy, and no matter how Dash rubbed against the fence she couldn’t seem to get it to go away.
Rainbow Dash reluctantly had to conclude that there was something wrong with her wings, like seriously wrong. They were just getting so disarrayed and skewed, and they were more of a fluffy mess of feathers than an actual wing. She participated in one of the daily flying lessons some ponies were doing around here, like three or four times, but no matter how hard she tried, she could barely stay off the ground. Other pegasi were in the same bind, but Rainbow Dash was supposed to be a good flyer! She was supposed to have an alternate universe self who was like, the best at flying!
Once she humiliated herself enough in front of the others, she went off to practice alone, but not even that helped her situation. She spread her wings with a wince of anticipation as the feathers caught on each other, and leaped into the air. The soft arc she traveled was far higher than it should have been, but it still wasn’t flying. She tried to flap her wings, and... it just wouldn’t work. Dash had to flap them faster and faster as something just drained out of her, and then she crashed heavily to the ground, again.
Maybe she didn’t want to fly. Maybe she just hated herself, and was psyching herself out so that she could never get in the air. Rainbow Dash wanted to fly, not kick stuff really hard, or run around like a pony. She didn’t just want to fly. She wanted to be good at flying. But it was like she got screwed over at the starting gate, and as her wings grew in they just seemed to be getting worse, not better. Rainbow Dash didn’t know. All she knew is she could not let Scootaloo know she was having any problems, like, at all. The kid still looked up to her, unbelievably! Rainbow Dash couldn’t let a brave kid like that think that her favorite athlete wasn’t any good at something like this.
Rainbow Dash practiced in futility, and she could sort of get a glide going if she climbed on top of the fence to jump off first, but the air just whistled right through her wings instead of gliding alongside them, and it wasn’t long before she was nose diving again. She pounded the dirt with a hoof, groaning in utter outrage, but for once in her life, there was nothing she could do. With no outlet for her frustration, Dash just headed droopily for the farm house. Maybe she would feel better if she got something to eat, and got fat so it’d actually make sense why she couldn’t fly.
Instead, she tried jumping off the roof again, right when Scootaloo got home early. And you all know how well that went over.
There at the edge of the meadow, Rainbow Dash rounded on that infuriating kid, who was just saying all the wrong things, and shouted, “I can’t. Fly! Okay? I can’t fly. There’sh something wrong with my hwings! They’re just growing in wrong, and I can’ fly. I’m shorry if I can’t do everyfing you want me to, but I can’t—”
Rainbow Dash turned away from Scootaloo abruptly and sat on the grassy field, a horrible blush that should never have been on her face flooding through her. “I can’t... fly,” she said dully, staring at the ground. “I tried everything. It’s jus’ not gonna happen.”
Scootaloo ran around to face Rainbow Dash in a panic, the filly not... flying, but still spreading her wings in shock, where they poked out of that cute little brown pegadress.
“What are you saying, Rainbow Dash!” Scoots shouted shrilly, as Dash tried to look away from her, but Scootaloo kept moving to face her. “You have to fly! That’s what you wanted more than anything else! More than any pony else! Miss Twilight said you had to fly! She knew the other you who was a great flyer and she—”
“Well maybe the other me got to fly her whole life,” Dash shot back angrily, “And I just got theshe wings a monshago and I already broke them!” Crossing her forehooves, Rainbow Dash tried to conceal a choked sob as an exasperated huff, but it wasn’t very effective.
“How did you break them?” Scootaloo replied in wide eyed shock, trying to look at Dash’s wings now, but now Dash kept rotating them away from Scootaloo seeing them. She didn’t want Scootaloo to see how bad they were. “Are you hurt?” Scootaloo asked, “What happened?”
“I’m not hurt!” Dash said to the little pegasus, “Why don’ you just leave me alone?”
“Because you’re Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo insisted, “And you’re the best athlete in Canterlot High, maybe even in the whole division! Even though the division is supposed to be imaginary, but that makes you the best athlete in the whole world! There’s nothing you can’t do! You have to fly, because... because I’ve never seen you this sad before! What happened? You can tell me I won’t laugh! I’ll ask my mom, and she’ll know how to fix them!”
Rainbow’s heart caught in her... weird pony chest. This kid was just... something else. She always knew how to make Rainbow Dash feel like she was on top of the world. Cared for. Scootaloo might not have been the most helpful, or reliable of people, but her adoration was genuine, more than Rainbow Dash could have imagined she ever deserved.
“I didn’t do anyfing,” Dash said quietly. “They just grew in bad, and I can’t fix them. I’m jus’ deformed or the transformation didn’t work right or something.”
“They can’t be that bad,” Scootaloo whined, edging around to try to look at one.
“Oh yeah?” Dash said challengingly, “You think you could fly wif... zheez?!” She spread her wings, wincing as a feather caught on—another feather, but staring at Scootaloo defiantly. Her wings were a complete mess, with the raggedy feathers looking more like fur than feathers, pinions going every which way, their tips broken and thin. Even her secondaries looked stiff and stuck out in unnatural angles.
Scootaloo’s eyes widened in shock, as if the sight stabbed deep in her on a level she didn’t really understand, a primal revulsion that made her feel like it was the worst thing she’d ever seen in her life. It was terrifying to see Scootaloo react that way. At Scootaloo’s speechless gape, Rainbow Dash struggled her wings folded again, and said anxiously, “S-see? That’s why I can’t—”
But Scootaloo’s paralysis again broke, and she darted with blinding speed to Rainbow Dash’s right wing, physically pulling it out with her hooves, shouting, “Rainbow Dash, what did you do to these? This is terrible!”
“I didn’ do anything!” Rainbow snarled, pulling her wing back with a snap that made the little pegasus yelp as the feathers almost clipped her on the way. “It jus’ grew that way, and no sthupid alien girl is gonna fix it. I give up. I’m just broken, okay?”
“How could this happen?” Scootaloo said frantically, “They grew in like that and preening didn’t even help?”
“No it—” Rainbow Dash frowned, glaring at the filly self-consciously.
Scootaloo was extremely nonplussed as Dash glared at her, looking up at Dash with scared violet eyes, folding her own wings and asking, “...what?”
“What’s preening?” Rainbow Dash asked leerily.
The gentle breeze whistled around them. A few foals were playing in the distance, chasing each other and laughing as children are wont to do, even if one of them used to be a 40 year old truck driver. “In the last month,” Scootaloo said in the quiet of the meadow. “You didn’t preen your wings. Your feathers were all growing in and you didn’t preen them, not even once.”
“Why, was I supposed to?” Rainbow said suspiciously. “Nobody shaid anything about anything shpecial I had to do with zhem.”
“I... I forgot to tell everybody,” Scootaloo said anxiously, turning away from Rainbow Dash to look away over the empty meadow. “I thought they knew you were supposed to preen your wings. How many pegasuses here aren’t preening?”
“What’s preening, already?” Rainbow asked impatiently.
Scootaloo blushed at that and looked at Rainbow again, down at Rainbow Dash’s hooves at least.
“It’s uh... it’s kind of weird, and embarassing,” Scootaloo said haltingly, “But it really is important. Like, really, really important. Like, ‘I didn’t even realize how bad it would be if you didn’t’ important. Oh jeez I really messed up now...”
“Could you pleaze stop telling me, and jus’ show me how to fix my wings?” Rainbow asked anxiously. “How do I do preening? Serioushly, these things are killing me!”
“Y-yeah, they must be really itchy,” Scootaloo said, only for Rainbow to grab one in her teeth and just yank—”Not like that!” Scootaloo yelped, head jerking back in alarm.
“They are sho itchy,” Rainbow spat out bitterly, along with a few feathers. “I can’t even think wif them all... messed up.”
“Okay, okay, just...” Scootaloo cautiously approached Rainbow Dash’s side. “Just spread your wing, and hold it so it’s in line with the ground.”
Rainbow Dash did so, but warily. Scootaloo then went up close to Dash and almost stuck her nose right in the pit of the thing, but jerked back at the last second going, “Uh—wow. Okay, so you see that um... oily stuff right there at the base of your wing?”
Dash blinked, but looked closer, and... it did have kind of a greasy sheen right there.
“You uh... rub that on your nose,” Scootaloo mumbled, “And then lick your feathers into place. I know it sounds weird, but that’s how it works.”
Rainbow Dash eyed Scootaloo warily. A blush tinting her own cheeks, Dash said incredulously, “You’re kidding, right? Tell me you’re kidding.”
“Sorry, I know it’s weird,” Scootaloo said, ears low. “It’s important though, and it makes your feathers less itchy, and... just try it, I guess?”
Rainbow Dash was really reluctant to even touch her own wing anymore, with how messed up it was, and Scootaloo was right there, too. Rainbow Dash wasn’t gonna go sticking her nose into... it was really sensitive in there, and Scootaloo was kind of... right here, so... Rainbow Dash just looked at the filly with apprehension.
“Okay, look, I’ll do it,” Scootaloo said placatingly, “Then I’ll be just as weird as you, and you can see how I... how I do it. It’s kind of embarassing but, um... this is how you do it.”
And it actually wasn’t so much weird as it was completely adorable, watching the little filly nuzzle into her wing, then start grooming it kind of like a cat, if cats had wings that is. Scootaloo kind of... pulled herself out of it after a second, and looked up at Rainbow Dash, saying, “See?” Spreading her wing, the little orange wing laid against her dress looking so sleek and smooth, and un-itchy.
“Ffffine,” Rainbow Dash said, curling around to—pause before trying anything. “Jus’ don’t laugh,” she cautioned. “I don’t know how to do this, so don’t laugh if I do it wrong.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Scootaloo said seriously, “I will not laugh.”
Rainbow still hesitated, but something told her the kid was serious about this, and about... everything she’d said just now. So Rainbow Dash took a tentative... poke in the pit of her wing with her nose. It was so oily a whole freaking... glob of the stuff stuck to the bridge of her nose. “Ackgth,” Rainbow said distastefully, pulling back from her own wing.
“Now rub it into your wing,” Scootaloo encouraged, and a glance at the filly showed that she actually... wasn’t laughing at all.
Well, carefully preserving the weird goop on her nose, Rainbow Dash sort of... nosed it into one of the feathers on her wing. It just kind of sat there on the wing, so she had to nose it again, to rub it in smoothly. The pale blue feather seemed to soak up the oil entirely, looking sleeker already. Dash got a bigger glob and started rubbing it into the rest of her feathers, and oh it was kind of good to move her feathers with her tongue, licking the oil deeper into their fibers.
She did it more, and more, and that awful, dreadful itching started to fade from her wings. “Oh my god,” Rainbow Dash mumbled in giddy relief, licking and nibbling, and...and using her teeth to pull out that loose clump of down that had been driving her absolutely up the wall. She did it to that wing until she didn’t have even one drop of that oily stuff left at all, then she went to the other wing.
Hesitation was not in Rainbow Dash’s mind, as she nosed out the goopy stuff that’d accumulated for who knows how long, and rubbed, and licked, and chewed it into her wings. The urge to bite the things and rip out the feathers faded as everything in her whole body relaxed, and she methodically pushed the feathers in line, one after the other.
Rainbow Dash was disappointed when she ran out of excess oil on her other wing, but the place on the one wing was already starting to get a little oily. How often could she do this? This was incredible! She groomed that little bit of oil into her wing, and stared at it, feeling curiously settled inside herself. The wing was still a mess, but the pinions were mostly lined up now, and most of the cracked secondaries had fallen out all on their own, once either the oil or her grooming had loosened them. She never even thought about grooming wings before. She felt kind of like a cat, or more like a parrot really. Getting every feather right just felt really... important to her.
After she worked on the second wing a little more, Dash looked back at herself, spreading them out to either side of her. And there wasn’t a rustling noise this time, when she did so! They just opened smoothly, if a little crookedly. She wanted to fix that crookedness, but how? Would she just have to wait until she got entirely new feathers? There were some of those... weird feather blood sacks that Rainbow Dash had been warned about, so she wasn’t worried about getting more feathers. But the feathers she already had felt so... so much better than they had before.
Rainbow Dash smiled and looked forward, seeing Scootaloo sitting there with Twilight Sparkle, while the purple girl seemed to be teaching Scootaloo about some sort of mathematics. Out here on a... grassy field.
“Hey Scootaloo—” Rainbow Dash started to say, only for Scootaloo to yelp in surprise and jump up.
“Oh! You’re done, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo said, settling to the ground in relief. “How did it feel?”
“I... I dunno how to say it,” Rainbow said kind of foggily. “I don’t think I’ve hit these levels of chillax in years.”
“Yeah, you were out of it for a while,” Scootaloo said frankly.
Rainbow squinted at that, saying, “Whaddya mean, a while?”
“Well, you were um... busy preening, so I went to the portables to get my mom,” Scootaloo said, “But Twilight wanted to come instead, and mom was busy. Then when we got back you were still preening, so we were just waiting for you to finish.”
“I... really?” Rainbow blinked. The sun was lower in the sky, she had to admit...
“I am so sorry, Rainbow Dash,” the purple girl said with the saddest look on her face. “I should have thought of this. Of course you don’t know how to preen! And I went and got your hopes up, telling you of course you could fly. Ohh, this is all my fault! I’ve just been so busy lately and I know that’s no excuse, but—”
“Hey, ish no problem,” Dash said to her, squinting as she addedd “Uh... Twilight, right?”
The girl blinked like a deer in headlights, and then her shoulders just... sank wearily. “Yes, my name is Twilight Sparkle,” she said. “I’m Sunset’s friend, remember?”
“Sure do,” Rainbow Dash said uncertainly, “Bu’ yeah, so Twilight. It wasn’ your job to get me flying. You did plenty to help losha people, already.”
Twilight smiled softly at that. “Thanks, Rainbow Dash,” she said, “I just wish I could’ve saved you all this trouble. I mean, I had to learn to preen, so I should have realized that you would too.”
“Woul’a coul’a shoul’a,” Dash said, flicking her tail dismissively. “All I wanna know is if my wings’ll be okay.”
“Oh they should be fine,” Twilight said, “Though it might take you a while to be flight ready if too many of your pinions broke.”
“Wha’ are—” Rainbow started, and Scootaloo cut in saying,
“Pinions are the really big feathers.”
“Oh,” Dash said, feeling oddly guilty as she spread her wings one at a time and counted, “Um... four.” It was pretty bad too. Some were just snapped in half, or dangling by a thread.
“It could be a while...” Twilight winced. “I haven’t read about how long it takes wings to recover, but you only have around eight pinions total, so four is a lot. I guess maybe about... three weeks at most?”
Rainbow’s head dipped glumly. “Well ish better than not at all,” she said. “Still, lots of people who don’t know about preening aroun’ here.”
Twilight cringed at that, saying, “I can’t even imagine. I don’t think there’s ever been an instance in Equestria where a large number of ponies suddenly acquired wings, and weren’t taught to preen them. It’s fascinating really, if troubling.” She stood up, and Rainbow Dash fought to keep her ears from going down, as in standing, the very human Twilight Sparkle rose to stand so far above her.
The towering girl looked down at Rainbow Dash, saying solemnly, “You probably won’t be able to fly right, until you replace all those damaged pinions in your wings. I’m no expert in this, and I certainly never ended up with that much drywing myself. It’s harder to stop from preening than it is to keep up with it, honestly. I don’t know what I’d do, if I didn’t know how!”
“Well—if you don’t know how,” Dash said a little nervously at the girl who like every other human being was like twice her height now. “Then you just... bite them now and again ou’ of frustration. At least that’s what I was uh... doing.” She looked forlornly at the wing folded to her side, saying, “I hope I didn’t damash them worse. I... I can’t believe that’sh what you do to take care of them.”
Rainbow Dash looked at Twilight pleadingly, and said, “You seriously have to make oil in your pits, and rub it all over the feathers?”
“They don’t call it a uropitgeal gland because it isn’t in the pit,” Twilight remarked wryly. “Wings just take a lot of maintenance. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Twilight then bent over and took the tip of Dash’s left wing in her fingertips, pulling it out much to Rainbow Dash’s nervous discomfort. “You should be proud of it, in fact,” Twilight said, tracing the gleaming pinions with her fingers. “The more you do it, the healthier your wings will be. Of course you shouldn’t spend all your time preening,” the girl murmured, fiddling with the crook in Rainbow Dash’s wing arm—okay!
Rainbow Dash pulled her wing back closed, surprised at the haste in which she did it. Not only did it fold easily to her side, but it kind of left Twilight Sparkle hissing and sucking on her finger to staunch the—oops.
“You okay, Twilight?” Rainbow asked worriedly, putting a hoof on the girl’s thigh.
“I’m fine. I shouldn’t have been messing with your wing,” Twilight said abashedly, looking at what was only a thin cut in her finger. “I’m just so curious what a dramatic effect a single preening can have on a wing.”
“Well... I’d show you, but it’s kind of...”
“Weird, I know,” Twilight said, blushing and looking aside. “Most pegasi only let their special someponies get ahold of their wings.”
“Special someponies?” Rainbow asked curiously. “Is that like your special someone? Like, romantically?”
“Relatively, yes,” Twilight admitted. “There are a lot of similarities, at least. But special somepony specifically refers to ponies, so that it won’t be confused with a pony who woos a minotaur, or joins an eyrie. Which is a gryphon nest...flock...thing. Um... I’m really not sure what you call bonded gryphons, but I know that minotaurs call each other husband and wife, much like humans, despite using the words ‘stud’ and ‘doll’ during courtship.”
Twilight looked at her hands, saying, “Humans bear a lot of resemblance to minotaurs, actually. It’s almost like if you took an ape, and tried to mold it into the shape of a minotaur.”
“Minotaurs?” Rainbow Dash asked, “You mean like thoshe bull headed things in mazhes?”
Twilight gave Rainbow Dash the most uneasy look, biting her lip, saying, “Right, you’re not... it’s... yes, they do have an architectural culture that builds... mazes, but it’s a lot different than the monster in Greek mythology. As for bull-headed, I can’t honestly say I know whether minotaurs are cow headed, or whether cows are like minotaur headed ponies. ...actually, cows would be more like giant minotaur headed ponies, that... wow that is a weird concept. Thank you Rainbow Dash. I have something new and invigorating to think about now! See ya!”
Twilight waltzed off smiling just a teeeeny bit disjointedly. Shrugging, Rainbow Dash faced Scootaloo with a grave, serious expression. Then, a smile bursting from ear to ear, she said, “Thank you soooooooooo much!” she flopped down in front of the filly, clinging to her forehooves, saying, “Thank you thank you thank you! You have no idea how much that was bothering me thank you so much thank you”
“Ack—Rainbow—Dash!” Scootaloo said, trying to edge away from the bizarrely affectionate pegasus. Rainbow sort of realized she was doing it again, and stopped trying to kiss Scootaloo’s hooves, blushing instead and standing again.
“So... I can’t fly,” Rainbow said glumly. “Twilight said I still couldn’t fly, until new feathers grow in.”
“It took me a month before I started shedding pinions,” Scootaloo said, “But that was from scratch, and grownup—er...” she blushed looking up at Rainbow Dash, who really didn’t want to be referred to as such, but Scootaloo said cautiously, “Grownup ponies are growing in their feathers faster, so you might be able to fly pretty soon. At least before July, right?”
“Yeah, if nothing elsh goes wrong,” a grumpy Rainbow Dash replied.
“Mom and I will make sure every pegasus in this place knows all about preening,” Scootaloo assured Dash. “And if there is anything else, we’ll do that too. Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out!”
Rainbow just had to tousel the bright eyed kid in her human/pony hair, saying, “You sure are something else, you know that Scootaloo?”
Scootaloo couldn’t think of anything to say that would make her any happier, and remained silent, sidling up close to her favorite person in the whole world, except maybe her mom, because her mom was just secretly awesome, even if she wouldn’t admit it.
Her head in her hands with her back to the sanctuary that was her portable building, Twilight Sparkle cursed herself for not having a more tactful way to get out of that conversation. It was so hard to remember that that Rainbow Dash wasn’t her Rainbow Dash, and seeing her as a pony made it a thousand times harder.
It wasn’t even the same Rainbow Dash Twilight befriended four time loops ago. Circumstances had changed, every human was a stranger again, and forgetting that, Twilight was getting too close to them again. Twilight just wished she could get past all this. She really needed her friends.
“Attention, everyone!” Cheerilee shouted out through a megaphone which her plum purple hoof was wrapped around. On that bright, sunny day, ponies and people moving around outside, going to various tents or buildings all turned to face the farm house porch where Cheerilee was standing at the center of it all... on three legs. “I need every pony with wings to meet me in the barn next to the cattle pasture! Every pegasus, please meet me in the barn by the cattle pasture! This is very important. If you have wings, come to the barn.”
Ponies started to move, a small fraction of the ones that were already there, but a definite amount. There were over a thousand ponies filling the surrounding farm. Even when you cut out the earth ponies, and the unicorns, that still left more pegasi than could comfortably fit in that barn. Big Macintosh had helpfully moved all of the hay outside, leaving as much space as possible, but pegasi were still spilling out the big open front doors. The ones who could fly were... not taking up space, but they were far fewer, and far farther between than they should have been.
Cheerilee kicked herself internally for not seeing this coming. Was it because she wasn’t a pegasus? Was she so self centered that she didn’t notice how ponies weren’t aware of principles of basic hygiene? How were any of them supposed to know this? Cheerilee had been lucky to stumble on it reading about wings with Scootaloo. She’d assumed Scootaloo was passing on the knowledge to the pegasi she helped, who would then pass on the knowledge further down the line, but it was just such an... embarassing and sensitive topic for ponies like these, that so many were getting lost in the shuffle.
The farm just couldn’t handle this many people turned ponies. They were getting overwhelmed with the sheer numbers. There were three hundred some odd ponies who had returned to their original homes and/or occupations, but with hundreds more, and almost fourty more pouring in every day, it was just too hard to find beds for everyone. Granny Smith had a whole team of people, and occasionally ponies, helping preparing the food for them all, and even the experienced cafeteria lady had never had to deal with volume like this. There was some talk of converting the fairgrounds for use by new ponies, but even that would get quickly filled up, and temporary buildings simply did not suffice for giving people a place to sleep, who had not adapted to their new forms enough to return to wherever they had been sleeping before.
Climbing up on a stack of hay bales, Cheerilee nosed on her megaphone again and spoke into it.
Alright! Now I’m sorry for the crowded situation. If any of you cannot hear clearly, I want you to please come speak with me personally afterwards. It has come to my attention that pegasi may be having problems with their wings, and with flying. Many of you may have noticed you have itching wings, dry or cracked feathers, and difficulty using them to achieve flight, and you may have not been informed about this important factor in pegasus hygiene! Much like your hair, your wings need regular care and maintenance, and unlike hair, you already have everything you need to take care of your wings, built-in.
Cheerilee’s ears twitched sympathetically, in a way she couldn’t twitch the wings she didn’t have. As she spoke, her daughter approached from behind the hay bale, ready to fly up on command as planned. Cheerilee continued to address the crowd, saying,
I am not a pegasus, but my daughter is one, and we learned something very important about wing care as she adapted to the pony she had become. What we learned is called preening. Now, I know this is a sensitive subject, and I’m not here to make anyone feel humiliated, but this is a matter of serious concern to your health. Plus, I’m sure that most of you wouldn’t mind being able to fly.
There was a murmuring of agreement going through the seemingly endless array of packed pony faces on the barn floor in front of Cheerilee’s impromptu hay podium.
Preening is, in short, an instinctive method to clean your wings, removing old feathers, aligning misaligned ones, and applying a natural body oil to ensure each feather remains supple and strong. I’m told it’s a very ...vulnerable experience, and I’m not going to ask any of you to practice it here. My daughter, Scootaloo is going to demonstrate for you the basics of it, but following this speech, I want you all to take note of the lists of names, and color schemes on the door.
These ponies are the ones Scootaloo has already taught how to preen their wings. Anyone who would like to volunteer to help teach other ponies may sign up with any of the ponies on these lists. You’ll be taught how to take care of your wings, and in exchange, you can teach others how to do so. I hope we can get this matter settled as easily as possible, and I’m sorry for going so long without knowing what has been the problem here.
“So without further ado,” Cheerilee announced, turning sideways as her daughter fluttered up into the air to land securely on top of Cheerilee’s back, “I present to you, Scootaloo!”
Cheerilee passed the megaphone up to the orange filly who was... standing on Cheerilee’s back, then watched with appreciation as Scootaloo grabbed it and declared, “So, who wants their wings to stop itching?”
The crowd was still shocked by the news, so their cheer was surprised and quiet, but Scootaloo launched right into the speech she’d practiced. Public speaking had always been one of Scootaloo’s strong points, not that she would ever admit it. But when she could get the crowd a safe distance away from her, Scootaloo didn’t have any of the fear that plagued some people who tried to get up on stage. Of course Cheerilee had encouraged this as much as possible, and it didn’t hurt that she wasn’t too shabby at addressing crowds either, at least not for an ordinary school librarian.
Cheerilee had not been doing library duties lately, but rather helping ponies transition from being clumsy victims of an unwanted transformation, to being competent and capable individuals who could realize their own potential. And frankly it was a lot of fun! As disappointed as she felt when she missed something so important as preening, when Cheerilee helped someone become a better person or... pony as it were, it was a seductively thrilling experience.
Except of course when she had to go intervene at times, for instance if those two alien girls happened to start disrupting Scootaloo’s speech by interrogating everyone in the back of the crowd.