//------------------------------// // Fright // Story: To Fly // by Background_Pony //------------------------------// Three days later, Rainbow Dash had invited Scootaloo to fly along side of her in Ghaslty Gorge, Quarray eels and all. The coral pegasus had responded with bright eyes and a bobbing head, not expecting anything that could- and would- go wrong. Far from th Quarray eels, Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash landed on the highest peak of the canyon. Scootaloo closed her eyes and listened contently to the soft breeze and gentle sound of flowing water. Her relaxing was cut short by drunken singing from somepony deep in Ghastly Gorge. The orange pegasus shot Rainbow a confused glance and leapt off the cliff, searching for the source. Soon she found a light blue mare stumbling around with a mug of deep cerulean liquid that shone and sloshed around in the cup. "Niteny blotters of monshin on da wall, HIC! Niteny shezenty ther bolters of mon! Glub won don, poos it aroound, HIC! Eiht btullers of wheat on da well! HIC!" The mare was highly inebriated by the thick blush and the slightly crossed eyes she wore. The mare focused her vision on the two pegasi in front of her. "Aw, hyey, Celerster and Lune! Howsh it gogin? I'm Moonshine, a monshin berwer. Wat shome? HIC!" Moonshine had a dopey smile as she offered her mug of moonshine to the open space next to Rainbow Dash, but they were already gone and at a different cliff. Scootaloo thought she saw Quarray eels. Instead of worrying, she shrugged it off and flew forwards. But when Scootaloo saw the dark-red serpents slowly sliding from hole to hole, her heart jumped to her throat and her mouth went dry. "A-are you sure that th-this is safe?" Scootaloo had to force the words out of her mouth as she trembled hopelessly next to a gleeful Rainbow Dash. "Yeah! Me and the tank always weave through the old Quarries!" she paused, looking out into the seemingly endless gorge. "you just fly between them and... Try not to get killed!" Scootaloo felt sick. She stood tensed and alert, trepid and fearful, and the particular eel that was glaring right at her with a single maroon eye wasn't helping at all. Rainbow Dash took to the air, motioning for the coral pegasus to do the same. As the two ponies glided through Ghastly Gorge, they started out slowly, meandering and bouncing along beside each other on drafts of warm air. The stress melted out of Scootaloo, thinking that maybe they would avoid the Quarray Eels altogether. But as they got closer and closer to the Quarray Eels, slowly picking up their pace, her muscles became taught again and her flying faultered as she drifted next to her mentor. And soon enough, they were flying at dizzying speeds, testing each other's flying abilities. Dash would inch towards the starboard, Scootaloo would drift to port. Within moments, they were but a few meters away from the Quarray eels and closing the gap. "Here we go, squirt!!" Rainbow Dash shouted, flying directly through the slithering mass of red eels. With out any hesitation, she had shot through the Quarray Eels and was hovering triumphantly on the other side. Scootaloo had two options. Fly through quickly, prove she wasn't a chicken, and run the risk of getting killed, or stop right there, fly slowly, prove she wasn't all Rainbow Dash thought she was. The coral pegasus took a deep breath and beat her wings as hard as she could. Nope. Too late. Scootaloo tried to stop mid-flight, but the Quarray's jaws were already closed around her wiry frame, crunching at the hollow bones in her wings and twisting them this way and that like a piece of thick taffy. Her highpitched screams filled the deep canyon. The pain around her wings and chest was unbearable. She felt excruciatingly dizzy, as if she had been around on the carousel in Ponyville a million times then backwards. In an instant, her wings went numb, and red washed over her vision. She heard Rainbow Dash's furious shrieking, and suddenly the pressure on her midsection was lifted. "Buckbuckbuckbuuck, what do I do... Buck..." that's the last thing Scootaloo heard before everything went black and she passed out. _-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-_ When Scootaloo woke up, her ears were filled with the steady beeping of a pulse-monitor and her nostrils were clogged with the smell of cleaning alcohol. Her back felt like it wasn't there, and her ribcage rattled with every shallow breath. When the coral filly finally decided to open her groggy eyes, she could see bandages latticed across her rising and falling chest. The beeping quickened as she realized where she was. Instead of crying for help, all she did was screech a earsplitting shriek and hide her face in her hooves. After screaming, her chest felt as if someone had dug rusty scalpels into her lungs and were twisting them around. Scootaloo coughed and gagged, only inflicting more pain. "Ah, Scootaloo," a starchy voice mused, accompanied with smaller twitters of worry. "you've woken up." the lanky, beige stallion that was standing infront of her hospital bed pulled out a plastic clipboard and began to scribble something down. "you've been in a coma for nearly a week now, and your wings- or what's left of them -are finally starting to heal." "My- rest of- wings..." she echoed, terrified of what she had just heard. With a tentative hoof, she reached back and felt the two, slightly feathered stumps that sat lazily on the filly's back. She belted out another scream and hurled one of her pillows at the nonchalant stallion. "Scootaloo, you must learn to adapt..." "B-BUT I DON'T WANT TO LEARN TO ADAPT!! I WANT MY WINGS BACK!!!" After she had howled her displeasure at the surprised doctor, she curled up into a small ball, as small as she could with the thick gauze bound around her middle. Silently scolding herself for acting so childish, she pulled the thin blanket over her head and shut her eyes tight, wishing she could just disappear. "Stethescope!! You're scaring her!" a softer, more feminine voice chided from across the room. Scootaloo could hear the gentle clop of hooves against the linoleum floor as she curled up tighter and folded the stumps of her wings to her body to make herself as small as possible. "There, there, it'll be alright," the mare rested a careful hoof on the shaking filly's back. At first, Scootaloo flinched at the mare's soft cooing, but she slowly relaxed and was soon crawling out from under the sheet. "Thatta girl," the mare sighed, brushing a tangled lock of mane from Scootaloo's face. "I'm sorry..." Scootaloo hiccuped, rubbing her face with the back of her hoof. "Why be sorry? You didn't do anything wrong!" "Nurse Redheart? Stethescope? Special delivery! Metal wings, straight from Canterlot. Got a little tag on it. Signed it in rainbow ink, under the name Rainbow S- wait, that's a D-ash," a gruff voice grumbled. With a mechanical 'clank', there was a large basket with a pair of gleaming, steel wings. Scootaloo's eyes brightened. "D-does this mean I could..." "I suppose so!" The coral pegasus' wide grin did all of the talking necessary.