Ditzy finished the preliminary course and hurriedly made her way out of the performance area. Shortly after, Razorwind announced her scores and stated there would an intermission while they prepared for the free-flight section. Ditzy groaned, clutching her stomach and trying to hold onto her lunch. She’d been feeling ill all week. She knew she should have gone to the clinic, tried to take things easy, but there was no way she was going to miss her Wonderbolts tryout. Not again.
So she had to suck it up and stick it out. She winced, clutching at her stomach. If she could. She was so preoccupied with her upset stomach she didn’t notice Spitfire until she was right in front of her.
She didn’t look pleased. “What the heck was that, Ditz?”
Ditzy stifled a groan and her forelegs shot back down. “What? I’m leading, aren’t I? I’m still top ranked!”
Her eyes flashed, and she matched Ditzy’s elevated tone. “Maybe, but not by much! Soarin’s right behind you, and Dart isn’t too far behind him. C’mon, Ditz, I know you can do better than this! If you don’t step it up during the free-flight—”
Ditzy snarled. “You don’t have to remind me what’s at stake here!” She stared defiantly at Spitfire, who recoiled, then sighed, hanging her head. “I’m sorry, Spitz. I guess I’m more nervous than I thought.”
Spitfire nodded slowly. “I understand. Believe me, I do. But you know you can’t let it mess you up. Not here, not now.”
She gave Spitfire a confident smile, only slightly marred as she forced down another wave of nausea. “Don’t you worry about the free-flight. I’ve got something planned; it’s gonna blow them all away.”
Spitfire smiled back. “Never doubted it.” She gave Ditzy a clap on the shoulder. “Go get that blue suit.” She turned and flew off, heading for the Wonderbolts’ viewing platform.
As soon as her friend’s back was to her, Ditzy let out a sharp breath, which turned to a groan. She whirled and began to trot briskly toward the restrooms.
As the free-flight section drew near, Spitfire excused herself from the other Wonderbolts. She was about to take off when Rapidfire stepped in front of her.
“Hey, Spitfire! Seems your friend didn’t perform quite as well as you’d said she would. I seem to remember something about ‘dominating’ the event?” He chuckled. “You wanna pay up now, save me the trouble?”
She grinned at him and shook her head. Small bets on the competitors were commonplace among the team members, especially when there was a favorite. Since she wasn’t allowed to judge her friend, Spitfire had taken bets on Ditzy to show the others her opinion on Ditzy’s skills. “She’s still winning, isn’t she? You should wait till it’s over before you try to claim a victory. Or didn’t you learn that lesson during the last derby?”
He smirked. “Well, I must admit, I’m rather curious. You see, your friend requested a cloud be brought in for her routine.”
Spitfire frowned, but her response was cut off as Razorwind called for the crowd to retake their seats.
“Best be off, Spitfire! I doubt either of us will want to miss this.” He shooed Spitfire away with a lazy wave of his hoof.
Spitfire took off, heading for the VIP box. “What are you doing, Ditz?” she mumbled to herself. The Wonderbolts weren’t big on cloud manipulation; everypony knew that. What was she thinking?
Spitfire nodded politely to the security ponies as she landed and approached the box. They recognized her and quickly moved to open the doors for her. She hurried inside and took her seat in the front row. A few more ponies filed in, sitting as the first contestant took a ready position.
As the competitors went through their routines, Spitfire found herself shooting glances at the unicorn in the aisle seat next to her. He didn’t seem to notice, and continued to stare out disinterestedly into the aerodrome.
Of all the ponies in the box, she had to be seated next to Slate. They’d only met a couple of times since Ditzy had first introduced them, and Spitfire had not enjoyed his company. She found him to be a snobbish, elitist dilettante, always looking down on the “common ponies.” Though she was and always had been rather upper-class herself, she worked for a living, while he lived off a Hooves family trust fund. She had always tried to downplay being born into wealth, while he seemed to revel in it and rub it in everypony’s face.
She shook her head. What Ditzy saw in the stallion, she would never know. Maybe Ditzy herself didn’t either; she’d told Spitfire their relationship had grown a bit rocky as of late. She refocused on the performance area as Dart finished and Ditzy flew out. Shortly after, a cloud was brought out and left floating in front of the VIP box. The ponies in the box whispered to each other eagerly.
Ditzy perched on the starting platform and took off as the buzzer sounded. As she made her way through her routine, Spitfire could tell that it wasn’t quite enough. Sure, the ring set had been impressive and her precision work was very nice, but the others had been very good too, and Ditzy was still a bit off her game. “C’mon, Ditz,” she muttered, “whatever you’re gonna do, you’d better do it fast.”
Ditzy broke out of a double-loop and shot toward the waiting cloud. At first Spitfire thought she was going to try and spin it, until she flipped over her right wing and brought her wings so close to the cloud she swore they almost ran across the surface. As Ditzy sped up into a spherical orbit around the cloud, the crowd outside started to cheer. While the VIPs contented themselves with excited tittering, Spitfire couldn’t help but let out a relieved laugh. Ditzy wasn’t cloudspinning: she was cloudshaving. By orbiting so close to the cloud at truly insane speeds, the cloud was forced into a smaller and smaller space and kept contained by her passes, giving the impression that her wings were “shaving” the cloud.
It was a horribly difficult maneuver, but Ditzy performed it perfectly and had managed to force the cloud into a space that was only a third of its original size. She knew her teammates across the aerodrome would be just as impressed.
It was then that she noticed a sort of gray blur around the cloud. At first she dismissed it as wisps of cloud escaping from the ball, which was now not much larger than a pony. But then she noticed a similar glow out of the corner of her eye, surrounding Slate’s horn. Where he had been apathetic for the others, he was focusing intently on Ditzy’s performance. Just as she began to realize nothing near him was glowing with the same grey aura of magic, she saw the ultra-dense cloud jerk downward and slam into Ditzy. The crowd gasped as she went limp and began to plummet toward the ground.
Spitfire turned back to Slate, only to find he had gotten up and was walking toward the exit. She began to move before she knew precisely what she was doing. She leapt out of her seat and started sprinting for the exit, body-checking Slate and slamming him into the wall. As she left the box, she didn’t even slow, shouting “Security! Don’t let Slate leave!” as she leapt over the rail and dove after Ditzy. She grimaced, pushing herself as hard as she could, but she knew she couldn’t catch up to Ditzy in time. Not only had she been driven downward by the force of the cloud, but she’d had too much of a head start, and wasn’t high enough off the ground. She strained futility, and was only four or five yards away when the ground broke her friend’s fall.
Ditzy hit face first, the left side of her head impacting with a sickening crack, and she was sent rolling violently across the ground with the snap of breaking bones. Spitfire landed next to her as Ditzy came to a stop. She was momentarily overwhelmed by the appalling scene, too stunned to move. Ditzy’s jaw was ruined. Her wing was badly dislocated, and the whole left side of her face was... Celestia, there was too much. There was so much blood. Shaking herself, she leaned in to listen to Ditzy’s chest. She was still breathing, but it sounded shallow, and her heartbeat was weak. Razorwind and Fleetfoot pulled out of their dives and landed nearby, looking at her anxiously.
She pulled away from Ditzy and nodded at them. “She’s alive! Just. Somepony get a doctor over here!”
Spitfire sat in the waiting room, staring blankly at the double-doors of the emergency care ward. Behind her, the din and flash of the press was kept outside by a squad of security ponies. She couldn’t get the image of the broken and bleeding Ditzy out of her head. All she could think about was how weak her pulse had been, how urgently the medical staff had taken her away.
I should have flown faster, she scolded herself. Or called for a doctor sooner, or—or maybe I shouldn’t have wasted time on Slate. She bit her lip. Please, please, don’t let her be dead.
She sat there, nearly motionless, for hours, sparing only a brief glance at the occasional doctor or nurse going in or out of the ward, returning to her somber anxiety as soon as she realized they didn’t have anything to tell her.
Eventually, a tawny brown unicorn in a doctor’s coat approached her. He spoke softly, with a slight Southern accent. “Ms. Spitfire? I—”
His address broke her out of her apprehensive musing. She shot out of her seat and barely kept herself from pouncing on him. “How’s she doing, Doc? Where is she? Can I see her?”
He held up a hoof. “Please, Ms. Spitfire, calm yourself.”
She quieted immediately.
He levitated a clipboard from one of his pockets and set it on a nearby table laden with aging magazines. “Now, Ms. Doo is out of the woods, Ms. Spitfire. She’s stable at the moment and we’ve just finished the facial reconstruction surgery. It was remarkably successful, given the damage.”
She felt the pressure in her chest leave as she let out a sigh of relief. She was alive. She’d pulled through. “Oh, thank Celestia. She made it.”
“Yes, but she very nearly did not, Ms. Spitfire. It was touch and go there for a bit.” He fixed her with a disapproving frown. “You should have informed us she was pregnant.”
She did a double-take at that, staring at him in disbelief. “Pregnant?” He nodded, still staring coldly. She shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t know. She didn’t tell me.”
He snorted. “You are listed as having medical power of attorney, Ms. Spitfire. You cannot simply ‘not know’ something like that. It is completely irresponsible. We very nearly gave her anesthetics that could have been quite harmful to the foal, especially as it looks to be less than two months old. Thankfully, we did not, and it appears to be healthy despite the surgeries.”
“Well, we haven’t been as close as we used to be, and... it doesn’t matter now! Where is she?”
He considered her for a moment, then turned toward the double-doors. “Come with me.” He took up the clipboard with his magic and started off.
She followed along beside him as they made their way deeper into the hospital, walking past beds with injured ponies. She silently wished he would walk faster.
He referenced his clipboard briefly as they walked. “Now, besides the sling support for her jaw, she’s been put in a body cast following surgical repair of numerous vertebral and rib fractures. Her left wing was dislocated at the wingjoint and broken at the ulna, near the upper part of the wing; it’s been reset and casted. We’ve attached pins to her left leg to reduce the broken tibia there. Then there’s the countless other lacerations and contusions all over her body; we’ve stitched up the worst of them and bandaged most of the rest. She’s on anti-inflammatories, blood production boosters and, of course, the appropriate anesthetics, as well as pre-natal steroids and vitamins for the foal. Despite some cranial bleeding and the heavy impact to her head, we have high hopes she will regain consciousness.”
He stopped in front of a room marked “Treatment 3.” “All in all, Ms. Spitfire, she is very lucky to be alive.” He gave her a sympathetic look as he used his magic to open the door for her. “Take as long as you need, just... try not to wake her.”
Her need to see Ditzy had twisted itself into trepidation over what lay inside. She shuffled forward and the door shut silently behind her. Her breath caught as she approached the bed. Ditzy was such a mess of tubes, wires and bandages it was difficult to see her coat in most places. They’d attached a respirator to her throat, as her jaw was held shut tight by a sling wrap. There were IV bags aplenty attached to her forelegs, and the whole side of her bed opposite the door was a mass of beeping and blinking machines.
Spitfire let out a ragged breath and reached out with a shaking hoof to rest it on Ditzy’s right foreleg, stroking it comfortingly. She felt herself starting to tear up. She wiped at her eyes with her other hoof. “I’m sorry, Ditz,” she whispered. “I’m so, so, sorry.” She laid her head on the gurney beside her broken friend and silently began to cry, shedding the tears she had never been able to shed for herself.
Spitfire stood behind Razorwind with the rest of the Wonderbolts as he approached the line of contestants that was now one pegasus short. Her eyes shot to the end of the line, where Ditzy would have stood. It had been two days since the accident, but Ditzy was still asleep. The doctor told her it was normal, that the body took time to recover from something like that. He hadn’t seemed as confident yesterday as he’d been the first time they’d met.
She shook her head slightly and brought her attention back to the matter at hand. Razorwind was just about finished with his speech. “Given the tragic circumstances which forced this retrial, we commend you for your perseverance and we must say that you have only shown us even better performances the second time around. So, after proper deliberation and careful examination of the scores awarded for both the standard course and the free-flight competitions, we have chosen, from among these twenty...” He lowered his head slightly, and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he was not looking at the contestants, but staring at the empty slot just as Spitfire had been. He squared his shoulders and went on with the speech, though there was a hint of sadness in his voice. “These nineteen select fliers, the next Wonderbolt.”
He walked down the line, as was customary, stopping about halfway down in front of a familiar white pony. “Mr. Soarin.” The crowd began to cheer, but Spitfire noticed a certain lack of volume to the applause. There was even a fair amount of booing and jeers; one small group even went so far as to chant “Ditzy Doo! Ditzy Doo!” as Razorwind presented Soarin with his uniform and shook his hoof. His smile slid briefly into a hurt look as he surveyed the crowd, but he turned from them quickly as Razorwind escorted him to the locker rooms.
Spitfire and the others congratulated the remaining competitors on their attempts, giving Soarin time to get suited up before they followed him inside. As she shook the hoof of a somewhat dejected periwinkle pony, she couldn’t help but feel for Soarin. She’d nearly burst with excitement after she’d made the team, but he knew he wouldn’t have won if Ditzy hadn’t been sabotaged. Despite his noteworthy improvements in the second set of trials, he was still the second choice, and he knew it.
The contestants dispersed and the Wonderbolts made their way inside. Though everypony tried to put their best face on their congratulations, their good cheer sounded strained to her. Soarin’s smile slipped every once in a while before he forced it back into place. Eventually, the complements petered out into an awkward silence. Razorwind cleared his throat and suggested they head down to make a press appearance. Everypony quickly agreed, and they hurriedly shuffled out of the locker room.
As they made their way down to the performer’s entrance, a security pony caught up to Spitfire, pulling a small piece of paper out of his belt pouch. She set it down, somewhat confused. As she read the rather short message, her eyes went wide. She pushed the piece of paper back over to the guard. “Tell Razorwind I’m sorry, but I have to go.” He nodded and she took off down a different hallway toward the service entrance.
Spitfire burst through the double-doors of the emergency ward despite the protests of the nurse behind her. She made a beeline for Treatment 3, where Ditzy’s doctor stood waiting. She slid to a halt just in front of him. “Is she still in here? Is she really awake?”
He was still a bit fazed by her sudden entrance, but quickly got ahold of himself. At first, she thought his head shake was directed at her, before she realized it was directed past her at pair of security ponies, who promptly turned and headed out of the ward. He looked back to her. “Yes, Ms. Spitfire, she’s awake, but I—”
She wasted no time, flinging open the door and charging in, despite an indignant “Ms. Spitfire!” from the doctor.
Ditzy turned, as much as she could in her various slings and casts, as Spitfire entered.
“Ditz!” She rushed to the side of the bed. “You’re finally awake! I came as soon as I heard. How are you feeling? Are they treating you...” She trailed off as she noticed Ditzy’s eyes, only one of which was focused on her; the other was shifting about wildly, only occasionally joining the other in looking at her. But more concerning was the fear and confusion in those eyes, and Ditzy’s slight shift as she tried to shy away from her. Her enthusiasm quickly melted away.“What’s wrong, Ditz? What...”
The doctor cleared his throat loudly. “Ms. Spitfire, I must insist that I speak with you. Outside.”
She nodded, giving Ditzy a last smile as she left the room. She quickly rounded on the doctor. “What’s going on, Doc? She was acting like—”
“If you would please let me speak, Ms. Spitfire?”
She froze at that, her face flushing red. “Sorry.”
He waited a bit, but she remained quiet. “Now then, as I was trying to tell you, she regained full consciousness just this morning, around seven o'clock. We haven’t been able to run as many tests as we’d like, but she appears to be suffering from amnesia. Whether that is a result of the physical trauma and resultant damage to the brain or a repression of memory, we don’t know. It could be both, or neither; we’ll simply have to wait and see if there’s any improvement.”
“But, Doc...” He frowned at her, and she hurriedly explained herself. “Isn’t there some kind of magic you can use, or something?”
He shook his head. “Memory spells can only target a general stretch of time; it is not specific or precise. Besides which, they cause the subject to completely re-experience the memory; if her mind has blocked it out, that would only further distress it. It is best to wait, and allow the injuries time to heal, give her brain time to cope with events.”
She sighed. “Okay. What about her eyes?”
He nodded gravely. “Yes, the strabismus. You’d call it wandering eye or walleye vision. It’s a result of the impact, though whether the result is from ocular damage or damage to the optic lobe, we don’t know. We believe it to be from brain damage as the initial impact was to the left side of her head and the left hemisphere controls the right eye, which is the eye affected, but the impacts from her roll were more than severe enough to cause the damage. We’ll need to do more tests.”
She frowned at him. “You don’t seem to be too sure about this stuff, Doc. What, exactly, do you know?”
His shout was unexpected. “I know she’s lucky to be awake at all! We don’t know how much she remembers because we can barely communicate with her: we’ve rebuilt almost her entire jaw and she’s just been taken off the respirator! I don’t know why she has strabismus because the damage was just too extensive to narrow down the cause!” He took a deep breath, and continued more calmly. “There is one thing I do know for sure, Ms. Spitfire. You... may want to sit down.”
She shook her head. “What is it?”
He sighed, but didn’t bother to insist. “When you brought her in, there was a significant amount of blood coming from one of her ears. We’ve done some examination, and... well, she’s suffered irreparable inner ear damage, specifically to the vestibular system, the system which controls balance and spatial orientation. The cochlea, which controls hearing, suffered less and we expect her to regain most of her hearing in time, but... I must impress upon you, Ms. Spitfire, that this is a flight-debilitating injury. It’s going to take significant physical therapy just to get her to walk in a straight line: the chances of her getting off the ground again are less than ten percent.”
Spitfire’s hind legs collapsed, and she didn’t even try to get back up. “She can’t fly?” she whispered. “But, Doc, flying is her life. Her special talent! Isn’t there something, anything...”
He shook his head morosely. “Once it suffers that kind of damage, there’s nothing we can do. She’ll be prone to vertigo and nausea just walking around; flying would likely worsen the symptoms to the point of pain. On a lesser note, the vestibular system also serves to stabilize her eyes. This will exacerbate her strabismus; she’s going to have trouble focusing on things, reading words.
“On the other hoof, her other injuries are healing nicely. The foal is still in perfect health. Barring any additional complications, we will try to start a limited therapy regimen within the week.” He smiled at her, but it didn’t really help.
“Thanks, Doc. Can I go back in now?”
He nodded. “Just... take things a bit slower, all right?”
She went back in with far less energy than her previous entrance. She was still in shock. She’d always thought, in the back of her mind, that Ditzy would be all right; she couldn’t accept that Ditzy was going to be a cripple for the rest of her life. She wouldn’t. Ditzy was a better flier than her, the best flier in Equestria even... but not anymore. She mentally kicked herself. Ditzy needed her help and support now, and Spitfire was still making her medical decisions; she couldn’t afford to ignore the facts simply because she didn’t like them.
She approached the bed at a more moderate pace, not quite managing to hide her pity as she smiled at the wary Ditzy. “Hello again. The doctor just told me what happened. Seems your memory’s a bit foggy.”
Ditzy nodded fractionally, giving a raspy grunt of approval.
She hesitated, not sure if she wanted to know the answer, but finally asked the question for the first time, a question that would eventually become a ritual for her. “Ditz... do you remember who I am?”
Spitfire turned the page, and the three of them sat silently for a time, absorbing everything that had been said. On the page lay a plethora of newspaper clippings, the largest of which read “TRAGEDY STRIKES WONDERBOLTS TRYOUT. Competitor Ditzy Doo in critical condition.”
Ditzy remembered most of it, but not getting hit by the cloud, not her fall to the ground. This memory hurt; it felt like a hundred pins were being poked into her head. It made her feel sick. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered.
“What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Ditzy! You were the greatest flier I’d ever known. Your biggest dream was to be a Wonderbolt, and you almost had it! Oh, by the way, you’ll never fly again. Good luck in life!’” She shook her head. “I mean, it was a miracle you were able to overcome the odds against you just getting airborne again. You didn’t know about how things were, and I... I just couldn’t see how it would help.” Spitfire looked at her pleadingly. “You seemed to be all right not knowing, and after Dinky was born... you just seemed so happy here, I didn’t want to ruin it. You’d earned some lasting happiness.”
The silence returned, until Rainbow Dash finally broke it. “What happened to Slate?”
Spitfire snorted as she pointed to the opposite page, which held only one clipping: “MEMBER OF ESTEEMED HOOVES FAMILY SENTENCED TO PRISON FOR PROVOKED ASSAULT! Christophe Hooves renounces Slate, vows ‘he shall never again be welcomed or supported by the Hooves family.’”
“He didn’t get half of what he deserved. He said you threatened to leave him, Ditz, and he used it as a basis for provoked assault. He said he was only trying to get some payback by ruining your performance and fouling up your cloudshaving. Said he never meant to hurt you.” She snorted again. “Lying snake. But he still had good lawyers. Fortunately, the Wonderbolts’ lawyers were pretty good, too. With me as a witness, he had to plead guilty to second degree assault. He’s doing time up in Canterlot prison. Good riddance, I say.”
Rainbow frowned. "So it wasn't an accident?"
Spitfire shook her head. "Officially, it was. But if you ask me... I think he meant to do it."
Ditzy remained silent for a time, but finally stood up. “I’m sorry, I... I need some time. I need to think about... I just need some time.” She turned from her friend and walked out of Rainbow’s cloud home, mulling over everything in her head, going through her newly found memories again and again. She took off, heading for home, but she remembered how flying used to be. She finally remembered.