Wings of Friendship

by DemonBrightSpirit

Complications

"Get it off! Get it off! Get! It! Off!" a panicked Rarity shouted as she stared at the grotesque thing. A bent, elongated wing jutted out from her side and it uselessly flapped up and down against her will, slapping her back and belly.

"Hold still," Twilight Sparkle complained as she grabbed the offending object in her aura. She pulled on it until Rarity was completely off of the ground. Only then did the wing separate from Rarity, sending the unicorn ungraciously crashing to the floor.

Rarity pouted as she got up and rubbed the spot on her side where the offending object had been attached. "I really don't think this is working out very well at all," she complained.

"I hate to say it, but I gotta agree with Rarity on this one, Twi," Applejack muttered. The orange pony had a green wing on one side and a red one on the other. Despite the wings flapping in a synchronous motion, she was anchored solidly to the ground.

Twilight whimpered as she used her magic to pluck Applejack's wings from her sides and set them aside with the blue wing that was on Rarity. "So we have a few problems to work out," Twilight nervously claimed. "It's not…insurmountable."

"We cannot make them move without your magic to make them, they don't have any feathers, they certainly don't fly…" Rarity prattled on.

"They're floppy, they ain't shaped quite right, and they ain't got a lick of strength to 'em either," Applejack criticized.

Sighing heavily, Twilight struggled to remain optimistic. "I know there's a lot of work to be done. But if we break it down and take it problem by problem I'm sure we can find a solution."

"If yah say so," Applejack resigned with a sigh as Rarity mourned the failure of her creations.

"I'm sorry," the pearly unicorn apologized as she stared at the stuffed wings she had sewn. "None of them are quite right, are they?"

Twilight offered Rarity an encouraging smile. "It's not your fault," she claimed. "I was hoping I could make the feathers with my magic, but all that came out was the little down feathers. But that's an easy fix, right? Don't you have feathers you can use, Rarity?"

Rarity nodded. "Yes, but…"she paused as she sighed. Rarity didn't want to admit her shortcomings, but this was really out of her league. "If you want something to look absolutely fabulous I can deliver to the letter," she asserted. "But you're asking for something to be…proper. I don't quite know how to put feathers on a wing like that."

Twilight frowned as she considered Rarity's words. "What you're saying is that you don't know how to make it anatomically correct?" she assumed. "Maybe Fluttershy could help you. She's pretty good at crafts and she should know as well as anypony how the feathers should be on a wing."

Rarity nodded. "That…might work," she agreed. "Perhaps she can assist me on the shape as well."

"Actually, I had a different plan for that," Twilight confidently claimed. "Spike should be out right now picking up some clay from the market."

"Clay?" Applejack asked.

Twilight nodded. "All we have to do is get a mold of Rainbow Dash's wing and we'll have a perfect model to make her a new one."

"Ohh," Rarity and Applejack breathed.

"Then we can refine the results and work out each problem until we have a wing that actually works," Twilight Sparkle touted her plan.

Rarity looked again to her failed creations. "So…then what was the point of making these?" she muttered.

Twilight felt a little bad at how downtrodden Rarity seemed over her apparent failure. "Well, you certainly helped identify a lot of the problems," she assured. "More importantly you showed that my magic has different effects on different materials." Walking over, she pointed to the different wings. "See? This one is already starting to tear apart, this one stretched out, and this one…this is the one that didn't have any down, right?" To test it, she blasted the wing with a ray of magic. It magically started flopping on the table, but it didn't have the essential down feathers. Another ray of magic purged the spell.

"So what yer sayin' is none of these are good enough?" Applejack asked.

The alicorn nodded while Rarity despairingly poked the wing just to make sure it wasn't going to flop around anymore. "I suppose I can try using every different fabric I have on hoof," she suggested, though she wasn't exactly ecstatic about the prospect.

"I don't mean to go and smash yer hopes, but this is Rainbow Dash we're talkin' about here," Applejack claimed. "I don't think any of Rarity's fancy fabrics can hold up to the kind of punishment Dash'd put 'em though. Should try makin' one out of somethin' more durable. A tarp or somethin'."

"I am not going to go and make a wing out of some musty old tarp! It would be a crime against fashion!" Rarity refused.

Applejack sighed as she rolled her eyes. "This ain't about fashion! It's about function. It don't matter if it looks good if it's gonna fall apart while she's up in the air!" she pointed a hoof upwards to emphasize her point.

Rarity's ears folded back as she lowered her head a bit. She hadn't considered the possibility of this wing failing midair. If she didn't do this job perfectly and make it out of a sturdy material, she could be responsible for another fall—maybe even a fatal one! She couldn't bear that thought.

"Tw-Twilight, do you really think this is a good idea?" Rarity backtracked. "What would happen if the wing really did rip midair?"

"It's not going to rip," Twilight assured. "Or…it shouldn't. My magic should be making the fabric more like skin than a woven material. It might get torn up, but it shouldn't catastrophically fail."

"Hey!" Applejack drew attention to herself with a stamp of her hoof. "Dash needs to fly. It's in her blood and written on her flank. Even if it is more dangerous than her natural wing, it's worth it."

Rarity whimpered. Applejack certainly had a point, but the thought of her being responsible for Rainbow Dash's untimely demise did not sit well with her. "I…I'm going to go write a couple of letters," she claimed as she headed for Twilight's door. "The weavers in Canterlot or the Crystal Empire should be able to recommend the proper fabric."

Twilight Sparkle sighed as Rarity trotted out. "This…might be a little harder than I thought," the alicorn admitted.

"Hey, 'whatever it takes,' right?" Applejack nudged Twilight in an effort to perk her up.

"Yes…" Twilight Sparkle agreed. "Thank you, Applejack."

"No problem, Twi," the earth pony dismissed as she headed for the door. "If yah need anything else, yah know where to find me," she said as she departed.

After Applejack left, Twilight turned back to the wings. "Feathers," she mumbled aloud as she fired up her horn. A purple ray shot out at the nearest wing. In a burst of magenta light, the wing vanished and all that remained in its place was a single pinion. She picked it up with a hoof wearing a somewhat irritated expression. Exasperated, she took a deep breath and blew the feather away. This was a lot harder than she had expected.

"Twilight! I'm back!" Spike announced as he entered the library dragging his wagon behind him with the lumpy mineral inside.

The purple pony sighed. "Hey Spike," she listlessly greeted. "Let's go to Fluttershy's."

"Wait, wasn't Rarity supposed to be here?" Spike asked as Twilight Sparkle passed him and headed out the door.

"You just missed her."

Spike groaned as he reluctantly followed after Twilight.

It took Twilight and the baby dragon a good ten minutes to get to Fluttershy's cottage. When they got there Angel Bunny let them in, but there weren't any signs of Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash. "Hello?" Twilight called out. "Fluttershy? Rainbow Dash?"

Angel Bunny shook his head. He pointed to the door and jumped up and down.

"Are you saying they left?" Spike asked.

The bunny nodded emphatically.

"Where did they go?" Twilight prodded.

Angel considered the question a moment before hopping over to the closet. He jumped up and grabbed the handle, deftly opening it. After disappearing into the closet, he reappeared struggling to drag out a white box. Once he was clear of the door he propped up the box to show the red cross on it. He emphatically pointed to it.

Twilight blinked a couple of times before what Angel was trying to say got through. "They went to the hospital!?"

Angel Bunny nodded.

Twilight wasted no time grabbing Spike in her aura and setting him on her back before sprinting towards the door. "Thanks Angel!" she called back as she dashed out the door. Before she even had a chance to start to panic, she spotted Fluttershy walking next to Rainbow Dash. Pinkie Pie was pushing Rainbow's wheelchair as they headed towards the cottage from down the path. She breathed a sigh of relief as she tried to calm her rapidly-beating heart.

By the time that the trio made it to Twilight, she was able to put on a smile. "You girls had me worried," she greeted. "We came here and you two were gone."

"Hey! Your cast's different!" Spike pointed at Dash's leg as he hopped off of Twilight's back. True enough, instead of her leg being straight out with a cumbersome cast, the cast was more petit and had her leg at an angle so that she could walk on her own.

"The doctors wanted to see Rainbow Dash today," Fluttershy explained. "They took the cast off and checked her over. She got her stitches removed, but her shoulder still needs to heal along with her leg."

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "They discharged her from the hospital only to ask her back the very next day to do all of that?"

"Yeah," Dash said in a deadpan tone. "But at least I should be able to walk on my own, now," she claimed as she sent a glare to Pinkie Pie.

"Hey! Don't look at me!" Pinkie defended herself as she pointed over to Fluttershy. "She said that your doctor said that you need to stay off of your hooves as much as possible. And you should listen to your doctor! Do you want your leg to implode!?"

"It's not going to implode," Rainbow Dash groused. After a moment her confidence faded away. "It's not, is it?"

"No, but it's not good for you to exert yourself," Fluttershy chided. "If you push yourself too hard then it's just going to take that much longer for you to heal."

Twilight smiled as the group filed into Fluttershy's cottage. "I'm glad that everything is okay," the studious pony spoke her relief.

Once inside, Rainbow Dash seized her chance and lowered herself out of the wheelchair. "See?" she claimed as she hobbled along on three legs. "I'm fine."

Fluttershy sighed at Dash's bullheadedness. "Um…what brings you here, Twilight?" she asked as she did her best to ignore her frustrations about Rainbow Dash.

"Well, we hit a snag with my spell," Twilight admitted, instantly garnering Rainbow's attention. "Rarity is having trouble making a wing just right, so I had the idea of getting a mold of Rainbow Dash's wing to use as a model. You don't mind, do you, Rainbow Dash?"

"N-no," Dash denied as her ears drooped. "It's, um…everything else is working out, right? No other problems?"

Twilight adopted a nervous smile. "Oh, uh… Yeah, everything's going smoothly!" she lied. "It still needs a little work, but like I said before we'll have you back in the sky in a few weeks."

"Oh," Rainbow Dash said as she looked away. The look on her face told Twilight and everypony else that she was far from convinced.

"I'm sorry," Twilight muttered as she abandoned her fake smile and hung her head. "I'm trying my best Rainbow Dash, I really am."

"I know you are," Rainbow replied, still downtrodden. "But…is it really enough?"

Twilight sighed. "I…don't know," she truthfully replied. "But I'm not giving up! Spike! Bring the clay over here."

A little nudging from Twilight got Rainbow Dash over on the couch so that her wing extended out and away from the couch. Then Twilight worked with Spike to encase her wing in the clay. "Is there… I mean, if you can't find a way to make this magic of yours work, is there another way to let me fly again?"

Twilight hesitated a moment before responding, "Let's just focus on getting this work." Dash whimpered as Twilight used her magic to compress the clay before separating it away from Dash's wing into two halves. She then floated the two halves into the middle of the room. "Give it your best, Spike," she urged.

Drawing in a deep breath, Spike managed to exhale a green flame as large as the baby dragon, even if it only existed for a second. Insufficient to set the clay, he repeated the process over and over until he got dizzy. He finally fell over in a heap.

"Uh, take five, Spike," Twilight suggested as she gingerly set the molds into Spike's wagon. They weren't dry yet, but hopefully they would last long enough to get them into a kiln. In retrospect, she couldn't fathom why she thought that having Spike use his fire breath to harden it would be a good idea.

"So you're going to use this as a mold for a new wing for Dashie?" Pinkie asked as she peered into the wagon. "But how's that supposed to work? Isn't it the wrong one?"

Twilight stared blankly for a few moments before facehoofing. "Ugh…"

"What's wrong?" Fluttershy asked.

"It's the wrong wing," Twilight explained. "We need to make Rainbow Dash a right wing, this mold is her left wing." Foresight was definitely not her strong suit today. It made her wonder if she really was just grasping at straws at this point.

"Does it really matter?" Spike asked as he got up and rubbed his head. "Just turn it upside-down."

Twilight shook her head. "It doesn't work that way, Spike," she explained. "Wings are mirror-images of each other. It's impossible to replace a right wing with a left one."

"Then just get the mirror version of this!" Pinkie suggested as she pointed into the wagon. "Problem solved!"

"It's not that easy," Twilight asserted. "I have no idea how to make an inverse mold. I suppose I could research techniques on how to…"

"Um… Where is Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy asked as she glanced about.

"…actually, come to think it I know I have that book. Spike, do you know where we put it?" Twilight prattled on.

The baby dragon shrugged.

"Rainbow Dash is gone!" Fluttershy fretted.

The other three stopped their conversation as they turned to the yellow pegasus. "What!?"

Comments

[That Avi Nerd]

Fluttershy sighed at Dash's bullheadedness.

Sounds like Rainbow Dash...

"Rainbow Dash is gone!"

Eeyup! There's Rainbow!