“C-Careful Pinkie! Those are the only wings I got!”
Rainbow watched nervously as Pinkie tried out her new set of wings. They’d gone to an empty field, where nopony would see them. The sight of an Earth pony giving flying instructions to a pegasus may have looked a bit off to most ponies. Pinkie hadn’t done as terrible as Dash expected, but it was still quite frightening whenever she wobbled, lost control, or started flapping frantically.
“Don’t worry, Dash! I was born to be air-born!”
Pinkie giggled but Rainbow found nothing funny in her pun. Her body was on the line, and she couldn’t risk losing it.
A sudden thought accrued to Rainbow at the moment. If she were to break Pinkie’s –well technically her own- wings, she wouldn’t be able to fly. She couldn’t mess them up any more than simply breaking them. But she couldn’t hurt Pinkie… On the other hoof-
Rainbow’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud thud!
“Pinkie!” Rainbow went over to help her winged friend who was now dizzy, stumbling over her own hooves at the bottom of a tree.
Pinkie looked at Rainbow. “It’s okay, Dashie! Your body’s fine!”
Rainbow almost felt like yelling in frustration. “Pinkie, you have to be careful! A couple scrapes and bruises are fine, but I don’t want you to end up seriously damaging my body!”
Pinkie gave a sweet salute with a smile. “Don’t worry, Dashie! Just one more try, and I’m sure I’ll get it right!”
The very words made Rainbow’s heart clench and her stomach swirl. Before Pinkie could barely open Rainbow’s wings, the pink earth pony grabbed her friend’s rainbow tail.
“No! I can’t risk it! Sorry, Pinks…It’s too important.”
“But, Dash! What about your job? Won’t your boss get mad if you show up to work with no excuse?”
Dash thought for a moment. It was extremely rare she missed work, but it was even more rare for her to miss work for an entire week. Sure, during work she slacked off and procrastinated, but she at least showed up and got everything she needed to done. Then Rainbow smiled slyly.
“But, we will have an excuse!”
There was a small building in the midst of Ponyville. The establishment was only one story tall, and was painted a bright hue of orange and vermillion. Although the building was the office of the weather team, it was placed on the ground in case an earth pony or unicorn had questions about the weather. For the Rainbow and Pinkie, however, it would easy access to the boss. If Rainbow missed a full week of work with no reason, chances are she’d get fired. Her boss was already upset with her for causing a colossal downpour right outside of Ponyville and causing a flood in the lake. She was lucky he even spared her flank from that incident, and she didn’t want to make him upset in any way again.
“Now remember,” Rainbow reminded Pinkie for the millionth time. “Address him by, ‘Mr.Skies’, use a respectful tone, and say ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’. And no funny busyness!”
Pinkie responded with a salute. “You got it, Dashie!”
Rainbow took a deep breath and held the door opened for her jumpy friend. She did a silent prayer that Pinkie wouldn’t mess up. Earlier that day, Rainbow put an ace bandage tightly over Pinkie’s left wing, and the excuse would be she had an injury and wouldn’t be able to fly. Rainbow’s boss knew she was a bit of a rebel, and it didn’t surprise him to any degree that she got herself into such a plight.
Pinkie waltzed in with a large grin, which looked way too weird on Rainbow’s face, especially considering her ‘injury’. A lone stallion sat at a desk in the very front of the building. He was stamping some papers and sipping on a mug of steaming coffee. He had hazel eyes, a blue coat, and highlighted blue and white mane. He had a small bronze nametag that read, “Cloudy Skies” across it. Pinkie approached him with the glued-on grin and leaned one hoof against his desk.
“What’s up, Mr.Skies?”
Rainbow watched silently in the background and facehoofed at the casual tone. Mr. Skies looked up from his work.
“Oh, good morning, Rainbow Dash,” he greeted, lacking all enthusiasm in his voice.
“What’s wrong? Not happy to see me?” Pinkie giggled at her own joke and Rainbow hid her face in embarrassment.
Cloudy did nothing but sigh. “What do you want, Dash?”
Pinkie cleared her throat. “Oh, yeah, well, you see, my wing is broken. You know me, always crashing and stuff!”
Her boss peered over the desk and looked at the bandaged wing. “What’s the story behind this one?”
Pinkie thought for a moment. “Well, you know…I was flying…in…town. Yeah. I was in town, and I couldn’t see where I was going, then the sun blinded me and I crashed right into a house.”
“Shouldn’t you know better than to fly in town? Especially going fast enough to possibly hurt somepony or yourself.”
“W-well I wasn’t originally in town, you see… I flew into town from somewhere else. I was on the edge of town, and I crashed into town.”
Both Pinkie and Rainbow knew one thing: Pinkie was an awful liar.
“Well, Rainbow. Since your wing is apparently broken, you have until the day it recovers to get back to work. And you’d better hope you’re not caught faking this, because if you are, you will be fired, young mare! Got that?”
“Yes, sir!” Pinkie chimed.
Cloudy said nothing more and got back to stamping papers. Pinkie and Rainbow silently left the building, but Rainbow spoke up the very moment they emerged into the great outdoors.
“Pinkie, are you crazy? You almost got me fired!”
Pinkie smiled and giggled. “But I didn’t. Now that everything’s good and situated, let me show you how to do my job.”