//------------------------------//
// Making Friends 
// Story: Bedridden 
// by Red Spark 
//------------------------------//

The next few hours were long and boring. Rainbow Dash lay in bed and thought about her failed stunt for a while, then about how bad the food tasted, and finally of how she longed to be back in the sky; weaving in and out of the clouds as she practiced her stunts for the day when she would impress The Wonderbolts enough for them to enrol her as an honorary member.

Rainbow Dash had been in hospital before, but her injuries usually weren’t this serious and she would be out of the hospital within a few days of the accident. Being unable to escape from a situation in which she was rendered flightless had come up in countless nightmares, not that she would admit that to anypony; she had a reputation to uphold.

Rainbow Dash’s ears pricked up as she heard a muffled yawn from the bed to the immediate left of hers. A red colt with a blonde mane and tail burst from the covers, scratching the top of his head and looking a little dazed. Being given a better look at him, Rainbow Dash noted that he was a pegasus. One of his wings was bandaged up in a white cast, which he winced at as he took a short stretch. The red pegasus looked around the room, his cobalt blue eyes finally settling on her. 

“Hey, I’m guessing you got here today?” the strange red colt asked her, “What’s your name?”
“I’m Rainbow Dash,” she replied, “and I’m pretty sure I did. Wha’do they call you?”
“I’m Red Spark,” he said, “How’d you get your wing all messed up like that?” Red Spark lay back on his bed with both his hooves under his head, which was tilted to face her in a comfortable looking position. It occurred to Rainbow that he had probably talked the same way to ponies that had used this bed before her.
“I guess I landed a little too hard while performing a stunt...” Rainbow Dash blushed, rubbing the back of her neck. She didn’t like telling other ponies that she occasionally crashed, but honesty was a part of friendship right? And she certainly needed friends if she wanted to distract herself until she could fly again.
“Sounds pretty cool,” Red smiled, and asked, “What kind of stunt was it? A flip? A roll?”
“I attempted to combine two tricks actually,” Rainbow Dash replied smugly, “a corkscrew and a sonic rainboom.”

Rainbow Dash smiled as she watched his brain at work. He slowly realised who he was talking to. He sat up in his bed, staring directly at her.
“You’re the mare who won the Young Fliers competition in Cloudsdale!” Red Spark shouted, his face lit up, “oh, damn! I’m sorry I didn’t recognise you more quickly!” Red began to calm down as he realised he had drawn the attention of more than a few patients and nurses. Rainbow Dash watched as he apologised to the ponies he had disturbed and lay back down on his bed in the same position as before.

Red Spark sighed and then gazed out of the window to the right of her bed. 
“I’d do anything to be up there flying again.” He said.
“Me too,” Rainbow Dash agreed, “I hate being stuck on the ground; I feel too restricted.”
“I hear you,” Red sighed, pushing his pillow up so that he could move into a sitting position, “I’d bust clouds for two weeks straight if it meant I was allowed to fly now rather than when my wing heals up.”
Rainbow’s ears pricked up at this.
“You’re a weather pony?” She asked, curiously.
“Yeah,” Red Spark replied, returning his gaze back to her. He smiled as he noticed the way her head slowly tipped to one side when she listened to somepony with interest.
“I’m guessing you work the day shifts?” He said.
Rainbow Dash paused for a second, then finally answered after thinking over the question.
“Well yeah, mainly because those are the only shifts, right?”

Red Spark looked as confused as she felt.
“You do know about the night shift, don’t you?” He asked in a tone that suggested most ponies did, with a slight grin.
“Uhhhh... Sure I did!” Rainbow Dash replied, matching his tone and smile. Truth be told, she had no idea what happened to the weather after they had dealt with it during the day. All she knew was that when she woke up, clouds had moved and the occasional rain cloud had appeared out of nowhere during the time that she was asleep.
“Well yeah, I work the night shift,” Red Spark said, breaking Rainbow’s train of thought, “Although they’ll probably move me to day shifts after the accident that got me in here.” He glanced at his broken wing and raised a hoof to touch it, but Rainbow Dash could see the pain on his face as he attempted to spread it open; he got about halfway and seemed to decide that was enough, drawing it back in again slowly.

“So how did you manage to bust up your wing like that?” Rainbow queried, taking note of the mention of an accident. Red Spark looked up at her, realising she had been watching him probe away at his wing.
“Umm... Well I was helping my partner out with controlling a storm cloud into the location specified at our briefing when I saw somepony flying through the storm,” Red Spark replied, pausing to see if Rainbow Dash was following the story, “So I flew down into the thick of it and searched for the pony wh-“

He was interrupted mid sentence by a nurse walking in, pushing a food cart. She was singing the words to a popular song performed by some popular boy band that she couldn’t seem to recall – BBBFF or something?

“Hello there, Rainbow Dash.” She said bluntly as she walked over, chewing a piece of gum between each word. Her voice sounded like she smoked 50-a-day, and the scent that surrounded her suggested the same. Rainbow Dash coughed a little as she tried to get used to the smell. She looked across at Red, who had buried himself under the covers. He obviously disliked this mare.
“Hey there,” Rainbow said, eager for her to leave, “What’s for lunch?”
“How am I supposed to know?! I just serve the stuff!” She answered, in a way that implied she didn’t care, or she didn’t want anypony to know what was really in it. She slammed a tray onto the table that slid over the bed and proceeded to fill it with the contents of several bowls. When she was done she moved over to Red Spark’s bed and did the same. He didn’t make any attempts to communicate with her, which was probably a good thing was considering the mood she was in. When she got too close, he nudged over a bit, still under the covers so that no pony could see him.

As the nurse walked to the next bed, Red Spark quickly but silently got out of bed and stuck a sticky note on the back of her hat. Rainbow Dash managed to make out the word “VACANT” after several glances when she was sure the nurse wasn’t looking. She could see all of the other ponies in the ward looking in the same direction and failing to suppress their giggles. She couldn’t help but begin chuckling too.

The best part of the prank was the way Red Spark made his way back to his bed; dropping to the ground and managing to slide on his belly from bed to bed by kicking off from the wall. He eventually made it back after several close calls where he had almost been caught, but he had cleverly left pillows where his body had been under the covers so that it seemed as if he were there all along.

After several outbursts from the nurse herself about how she was paid too little, she finally pushed the cart out and everypony cheered; congratulating Red Spark on a successful stealth assault on the enemy.
“Gotta hand it to you, Sparky, that was a pretty sweet prank back there!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed with massive enthusiasm. She loved a good prank as much as she loved flying, and avoiding detection is always a fun one if you can pull it off.
“Thanks, Rainbow!” Red beamed, “Well hey, I’m guessing you don’t want to eat whatever this crap is, right?
“It looks pretty tasteless...” She replied, as she poked at what she thought to be a slice of carrot but drew her hoof back abruptly as it somehow bubbled upon contact.
“Well I’m getting my friends to bring some sandwiches to eat instead! I can get them to make some for you if you like?” Rainbow Dash thought about it for a split second; she didn't want to seem greedy but didn't want to eat bubbly carrots either, but her decision was biased due to the fact that starvation is bad.

Red Spark eventually made a call to his friends, telling them to make a bunch of assorted sandwiches for them to share, and afterwards continued his conversation with Dash, awaiting the banquet coming their way.