Rainbow Dash Sucks at Preening
Rainbow Dash lay atop a stray cloud overlooking the woodlands outside of Ponyville, her left hindleg resting over her right in a very relaxed state. There was nothing but green grass and a single road leading to town below her. She had spent one of her longest shifts with the weather team that day: Four whole hours! Rainbow Dash loved her job as a weather pony, but she loved her time off even more. Some days she would spend time with her friends; making goodies at Sugarcube Corner with Pinkie Pie, or playing against Applejack in some heated competition. But some other days, she just felt like lazing away in the clouds, doing absolutely nothing. This happened to be one of those days. She let her eyelids droop over her as she felt a looming nap upon her. She had just shut her eyes and taken a deep breath, drifting off into slumber land, when…
“Rainbow Dash!” a small eager voice called from below her. She awoke with such a start that she almost fell out of her makeshift bed. She quickly wrapped her legs around the malleable cloud to keep from falling. She turned her head from side to side, searching for the voice that had called her. “Down here!” the voice called again. Rainbow looked down and saw the form of a dark saffron pegasus pony eagerly looking up at her. A wide smile formed across her face as she noticed the rainbow pegasus looking down at her.
“Oh, hey Scoots.” Rainbow Dash replied, doing her best to hide her annoyance at being woken up so suddenly. “What’s up?”
“Hey Dash um, can I ask you a question?” Scootaloo’s expression suddenly changing from excited to very intent.
Rainbow Dash sunk her chin into the cloud and sighed. “Sure. What do you need?” she asked impatiently.
“It’s… kind of personal.” Scootaloo raised a hoof and beckoned for Rainbow Dash to come closer to her, so they could talk in privacy.
Rainbow Dash noticed the younger pony’s uneasy demeanor, and spoke with more sympathy in her voice. “Oh yeah, hang on.” Flexing her shoulders to rid herself of the tired stiffness building within them, she loosened her grip on the cloud and swooped downwards. She circled the area below until her hooves elegantly touched the ground. “Is something wrong? Are you okay?”
Scootaloo had a look of apprehension on her face. She shifted her eyes from side to side. “I think something’s wrong with my wings. They’ve been hurting when I use them for the past few days. I haven’t even been able to ride my scooter for the past few days because of how bad they hurt.”
“A pain in your wings? Hm…” Rainbow Dash put a hoof to her chin as she mulled over the plight of the young pegasus. “Well, have you molted yet?”
“Have I what?”
“You know, shed your feathers?” Scootaloo shook her head. “Oh wow, that’s pretty surprising. Most pegasi your age have done it at least once by now.” Rainbow Dash sat back on her haunches and took a deep breath. She wasn’t sure if she was the right one to be giving the filly talks like these, but she wasn’t really sure who else Scootaloo had to turn to. She cleared her throat before she spoke. “Once a year, usually after mating season- wait, you know what mating season is right?” Scotaloo shook her head yet again. “Well… whatever, it’s not important. Anyway, pegasus ponies usually have a time where they all shed their wings. Our feathers get a lot of work throughout the year, and eventually they start to break down and become less reliable. So our bodies sort of push them out, and then we eventually grow new ones in their place. Make sense so far?”
“I guess so.” Scootaloo responded. “But that doesn’t explain why my wings are hurting so much.”
“Well, it usually hurts the day before you start shedding. How long did you say they’d been bothering you?”
“Three days. And it’s been getting worse each day!”
“Wow, that’s pretty bad.” Rainbow Dash stood up and trotted her way behind Scootaloo. “Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”
“I was… embarrassed.”
“But why?”
“Because…” Scootaloo trailed off for a second, then quickly shook her head. “Forget it. It’s not important.”
Rainbow Dash wore a pained expression that Scootaloo might be hiding something from her. “Okay… anyway, let me take a look at them.”
“But Dash, they hurt whenever I move them!”
“I know kiddo, but I need to see if I can figure out what the problem is; Unless you want to get taken to a doctor?”
Scootaloo’s teeth visibly clenched in response to her suggestion. She clearly wanted nothing to do with doctors or hospitals. “Okay, fine.” She replied. Squeezing her eyes shut, she slowly extended her tiny wings, wincing sharply as they unfurled. “Ow, ow, ow!” she murmured until they were fully extended. They trembled as she held them out, a clear indication of her pain.
Rainbow Dash leaned her head in to inspect Scootaloo’s wings. She could see from the base of the feathers that there were tiny swollen red marks surrounding them. “Yeah, your feathers look pretty irritated.” She commented as she looked them over. “Your wings might be having a hard time pushing your feathers out, so now they’re stuck and kind of clogging up your follicles. No wonder it hurts you so much.”
Scootaloo turned to face Rainbow Dash with a look of dismay upon on her face. “Seriously? So my wings aren’t able to fly, or even grow out right? Geez, what is wrong with me?”
“No no no!” Dash held a hoof out to sway Scootaloo from being so hard on herself. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Scoots. It’s just the way someponies are; all of our bodies work differently. It has nothing to do with you, I promise!”
Scootaloo forced a weak smile as she kept her wings out for the rainbow pegasus. “Thanks. But now what? Is it just gonna keep hurting until they fall out?”
“That’s what I’m worried about, squirt. You should only be in pain for a day at the most, then you start molting and it goes away. If we don’t get those feathers out, the ones underneath will grow in all crooked, and then you’re really going to have a problem on your hooves.”
“Well then how do we get them out?”
“We’re… gonna have to do it by force.”
Scootaloo’s eyes widened in fear at her suggestion. She quickly curled her wings back up against her sides and shook her head. “No way, Dash.” She protested. “You’re not really gonna… pull them?” Rainbow Dash nodded her head. “ There’s gotta be a less painful way!”
“I know you’re scared, kid. But it’s the best way to solve this problem; otherwise your wings might not ever grow in properly.” Rainbow Dash held up a front hoof and gently touched Scootaloo’s mane to offer her some comfort. “You need to be brave about this. It’ll be over in just a minute, and then you’ll be pain free. Trust me, okay?”
Scootaloo still looked uneasy, but she closed her eyes and nodded as she stopped trembling. “Okay Dash. Let’s do it.”
“Good. Okay, lie down.” Scootaloo slowly lowered herself so that her belly was up against the ground with her legs splayed out in front and behind her. Closing her eyes tightly, she once again pushed her wings open and winced in pain. “You ready?” Rainbow asked.
“Y-y-yeah!” Scootaloo quickly brought her hooves up to her face and trembled anxiously. Rainbow Dash leaned her face into Scootaloo’s tiny feathers, placing her right foreleg over her back to hold her down. Her wings felt so smooth and silky against her cheeks, they tickled her momentarily. She felt bad that she was about to tear such delicate things away in a moment. She worked her teeth as close as she could to the base of them, making sure not to bite on any of the young pony’s skin. Getting a firm grip on her soft feathers, she quickly reared her head backwards; the sudden movement yanked Scootaloo’s feathers from her tiny wings, eliciting a soft but audible tearing sound from the force. “Ahhhhh!” Scootaloo cried out in pain and kicked her rear legs wildly.
“Sorry!” Rainbow Dash shouted over her cries after spitting her feathers out. “I know it hurts, but I need to do it quickly or it’ll just make it worse.” As soon as she had finished speaking, she reached down and grabbed another mouthful of Scootaloo’s feathers and plucked them out just as quickly as before. She yelped out again, but buried her face into the grass to try and muffle her own screams. Rainbow’s heart ached as she saw the young filly in such pain, but she couldn’t afford to stop now. Trying to deafen herself to Scootaloo’s agony, Rainbow Dash continued to pluck her feathers from her in large mouthfuls.
“Whoa, what’s going on here?” a slurry voice asked from behind the pair of pegasi. Rainbow Dash looked behind her with a mouthful of feathers to see Berry Punch with a bottle of Pony Walker clenched in her teeth looking directly at the two. Hovering above her was Cloud Kicker, looking almost horrified at the scene unfolding before her.
“Guth, it’h noth-!” Rainbow Dash spat out the clump of feathers in her mouth, and attempted speaking to them again. “It’s not what it looks like!”
“I… don’t even know what you think it looks like, Dash.” Cloud Kicker said, her hooves under her chin in worry. “It looks like you’re torturing her!”
“I’m not! She’s just having difficulty molting, so I have to force it for her. Didn’t something like this happen to your little sister?”
“Well yeah, it did, but…” Cloud Kicker landed on the ground and made her way towards the pair. “That’s not how you’re supposed to do it, just pulling them out in clumps like that. You have to be precise, and speedy at it!”
“I’m going as fast as I can! And being the fastest in Equestria, that’s saying something.”
Cloud Kicker rolled her eyes. “You might be the faster flier in Equestria, but that doesn’t make you the fastest at everything. Just let me do it, okay?” She knelt down over Scootaloo’s back, her wings appearing as though they’d been through a shredder. “Hi Scootaloo!” She said in a cheery tone, patting her mane and trying her best to comfort her, while Rainbow Dash made her way to the front of Scootaloo. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well right now. You know, me and Berry saw you racing down town on your scooter. We think you’re a really talented pony!” Scootaloo’s sobs lessened for a moment at Cloud Kicker’s kind words. Rainbow Dash looked across at the lavender mare and mouthed a silent “thank you” at her.
Before she looked down at the miserable filly, she turned to Berry Punch; now sitting on her haunches and sipping from her glass bottle. “Any reason you’re here, Berry?”
“Me?” she asked, putting her bottle down, hiccupping slightly. “I was just taking a walk with Cloud kicker, we were on our way to the watering hole. Now I’m just here to enjoy the show.” She laughed loudly as she took another drink.
Rainbow Dash shook her head at Berry Punch’s crude remarks at Scootaloo’s expense. She gently held the small pony’s hoof and stroked it lovingly. “I’m really sorry we have to put you through this, but Cloudkicker’s gonna take over now, and she’s a lot better than me at this. It’s almost over, okay?” Scootaloo nodded slightly, tears building up in the corners of her eyes. Cloudkicker moved her head in and took a small grip of her feathers and pulled them out, quickly spitting them out of her mouth to the side. Before Scootaloo’s body could even contract, the lavender pegasus had already scooped and pulled another group of her feathers. Cloudkicker moved with swift proficiency, enough to impress even Rainbow Dash. All that was heard of Scootaloo were soft and painful moans as she kept her mouth pressed into the ground, trying with all her strength to keep from crying out. After not even a minute had passed, she was finished. Scootaloo’s wings were now completely barren of feathers, two small and naked nubs now standing in their place.
“There you go, all done. You did a really good job, Scootaloo!” Cloudkicker slowly moved her hooves up and down the young pony’s back, massaging her gently to and fro. “Dash, her wings are probably really sore right now. Can you keep this up for a few more minutes to try and ease her pain?”
“Yeah, no problem.” She replied in a composed tone. She hopped to Scootaloo’s back and moved her forelegs in place of Cloudkicker, rubbing her featherless wings as gently as she could. “Thanks for your help. You really did better than I was doing.”
“No problem. You did really well, Scootaloo. I hope you feel better. Bye now!” Cloudkicker sprinted off into the air towards Berry Punch, who had finished her drink and tossed it off to the side, giggling to herself as the two left off towards town.
An awkward silence hung in the air as Rainbow Dash massaged Scootaloo’s bare wings. “You okay kid?” Scootaloo nodded her head, not saying a word in response. “Do you… need to cry?” Rainbow Dash forced herself to ask. The younger pegasus shook her head vigorously. “Hey, if you need to, go ahead. I promise I won’t give you a hard time for it.”
Scootaloo turned her head and faced Rainbow Dash, her eyes shimmering from holding back her sorrow. She threw herself at the cyan pegasus and sobbed loudly as she buried her head into her chest. “My wings!” she cried out. “They hurt so bad! I didn’t think it was ever gonna stop!”
“I know. I’m so sorry.” Rainbow Dash told her in a soothing voice. “But you did a really good job. You didn’t try to run away or anything. That’s really cool of you.”
“But now they’re gone! Even though they didn’t work right, I still loved them! I look so stupid now.”
“No you don’t! Come on, every pegasus has to do it. And we all look the same without our wings. It’s just part of growing up.”
Scootaloo sniffed loudly as she rubbed her eyes on Rainbow Dash’s chest. “I hate growing up.”
“I know that feeling, kid.” Rainbow Dash thought back to the days when she was in Flight Camp, back when life was so easy. All she had to do was go to school and enjoy her friends, nothing more. After she’d dropped out, the real world seemed like a crummy place sometimes.
“Why didn’t my wings just molt right on their own?” Scootaloo asked. “Why did they have to get pulled out?”
“Hey, it happens sometimes.” Rainbow Dash responded.
“Did it happen to you?”
“Uh… no. Mine was actually pretty easy.” Scootaloo’s face sank. “But don’t worry about it! It’s nothing wrong with you, you’re just different.”
“I don’t like being different.”
“Come on, don’t say that. You just need some extra maintenance.” Dash ran her hoof across Scootaloo’s back, rubbing her wings tenderly. “Sometimes the most awesome things require the most work to make it perfect, you know?”
Scootaloo looked up at Rainbow Dash, her eyes red from crying, but a sense of hope still apparent. “Really?”
“Yeah! What, you think Cloudsdale was built in a day? That place took years of work to make it just right. Just try to be patient. It’ll all come together for you one day, even if it takes a really long time. I promise.”
Scootaloo rubbed her puffy eyes and smiled. “Thanks Rainbow Dash. You’re the best.”
Rainbow scoffed and patted the younger pegasus’ hair. “Yeah, that’s kind of my thing.” She replied in a hearty tone. “Feel better now?”
“Yeah, a little.” Scootaloo crawled up closer to Rainbow Dash’s face and planted an small but enthusiastic kiss on her cheek. She then lowered her head and snuggled into her chest tenderly. “Hey, do you mind if I stay here for a bit… with you?”
Rainbow’s face turned a light pink at the younger pony’s sudden embrace. She chuckled nervously as a heartwarming smile formed on her face. “Sure thing. You can stay as long as you need.” She wrapped her hooves tightly around Scootaloo in a cozy hug. The younger pony’s eyelids began to loll as she adjusted herself and began to doze off. Rainbow gently rubbed her back as she felt her soft breaths against her chest. Poor kid, she thought to herself. She could really use an older sister. Growing up’s no fun when you’re all by yourself. She looked up to the clouds, where she had been napping only a moment ago. Even though it had been an excruciating experience, she was glad Scootaloo had chosen her to ask for help. It made her feel like she had somepony to look after.
You don't need to look up to the sky to find me anymore, squirt. I'll be right beside you from now on.
THE END
Thanks again to Farnsworth Hoovington for suggesting the idea of molting in the first place, and Karrakaz for nitpicking the crap out of my first draft and making it much more readable. They seriously help me out and give me that little boost of confidence I need to submit my stories. And thanks for everyone reading so far. This is the first non-clop I've ever written, I hope you all enjoyed it!