//------------------------------// // Trees - Cynical // Story: TwiDash Prompt Collab // by TwiDashCollabs //------------------------------// Trees… trees… there was something about trees that Rainbow Dash just hated. It wasn’t that they made for good napping points, no, she quite enjoyed that fact. Was it that Applejack seemed to always shake her out of them? No… not quite. While it was annoying, it was bearable. She groaned… Oh yeah… that was why, they always seemed to pop up whenever she was practicing stunts near the ground… Stupid trees. Groaning, Rainbow raised her head and looked around. Thankfully, she knew this tree pretty well. Maybe not to the point of Fluttershy’s ability to talk to the plants… but she had a pretty good passing acquaintanceship with this particular tree. There was the impact she’d made last week, oh, and if you looked closely enough, you could see the area where she first impacted it… somewhere inside the other areas she’d done the same thing. She got to her hooves, breathing heavily at the simple action. Folding her wings in caused her to wince, immediately extending them again and glancing down at the area which hurt the most. It looked like yet another cracked rib… thankfully it was none of the ones which were already cracked, but all the same… it looked like a trip to the hospital was going to be in order… again. It was then that the door in front of Rainbow opened suddenly, a silhouette could be made out against the crackling fire in the library. “Rainbow Dash? What are you doing awake at this hour?” the silhouette asked groggily, glancing towards the starry sky above. “Hey Twi…” Rainbow replied, “Nothing much… just practicing my stunts again…” she said, trying to hide the pained inhalations from the unicorn in front of her. She was cool, cool ponies didn’t show pain, they were protected by the power of awesome or something… Not that it mattered, Twilight stepped forwards towards Rainbow, “Are you ok Rainbow?” she asked, concerned at her friend’s well-being. “Yeah… I’m fine.” Came her answer, pained gasp and all. “Hmm… well assuming that you’ve been practicing some of your more dangerous stunts again, added with the light available, that would mean that you were only able to see the library at the last moment, so you were practicing something involving sharp turns… again meaning that you crashed into the library with a lot of momentum behind you. And if we look at where you crashed… that looks like…” the studious unicorn paused, then gasped. “Dash… have you cracked your ribs again?” Rainbow closed her mouth, long-since accepting the somewhat unbelievable conclusions that the unicorn could draw from practically nothing. She nodded her head automatically, causing the unicorn in front of her to sigh. “Come on then, I can help you this time. I finally took the liberty of studying how to heal broken bones after the last ten times you’ve managed this.” Twilight turned, going into the doorway and waiting on the other side, giving Dash an expectant look. Rainbow sighed, following her in and whispering to her as she passed, “Thanks Twilight” as the door shut behind her.