You Can't Take The Sky From Me

by FailcopterWes

Chapter 4: Pegasi and Preparations

Chapter 4

Ditzy managed to stay awake for the rest of the night, attentively watching over the other two ponies and occasionally watching a passing animal too. Whenever a creature got too close, she would growl playfully at it, and then watch as it stopped, evaluated its opponent, and then wandered off.

She never saw any owls. This disappointed her a little, but the overabundance of ground based creatures the scuttled around in the night made up for it. When Rainbow awoke in the morning, Ditzy proudly reported her animal encounters in the night.

Rainbow just stared up at her. She had been conscious for all of twelve seconds and was already being bombarded with a stream of varyingly detailed accounts of night activities of, as Ditzy put it, “really adventurous squirrels who must have seen what a good guard I was being”. Rainbow leaned sideways to see if the berry pile was still intact. It was, much to her surprise.
“You look silly with that smile” Ditzy said. “Its like somepony’s giving you a massage. But I’m not giving you one, and Flutty isn’t so you must have learnt to do it yourself. Can you teach me to give myself a massage?”

Dash stared blankly for a moment.
“What...” she uttered, before chuckling slightly. She pulled herself groggily to her feet and shook her head. “You know what, never mind” Dash said, noticing that Ditzy was about to begin speaking again. “I’m sure you did a great job”

Ditzy beamed and nodded her head rapidly. When her head finally stopped moving, her eyes took another moment to stop rolling around in their sockets. Dash moved to the berry pile and helped herself to a few of them.
“You know, we can’t stay here forever, we’re going to have to try and get back to Ponyville sometime” Rainbow told her. “You know that right?”

Ditzy nodded again, slower this time.
“Only problem is... we got a lotta problems” Rainbow continued. “First up, we have no idea where we are...”
“Yeah we do!” Ditzy interjected.
“Do we?”
“Yeah! We’re in a forest!” Ditzy chirped. Rainbow facehoofed. “Bordering on a load of big deserts” she added.

Rainbow looked up.
“Deserts?” she asked. Ditzy nodded. “I didn’t see a desert when I was up looking for you. And the only deserts I know of are around Appleoosa, and I don’t remember a forest anywhere near there.”
“Isn’t there a really big desert up north somewhere?” Ditzy asked.
“I didn’t do well in geography, Ditz, I have no idea” Rainbow said, quietly wondering if Ditzy, for all her simplicity, had actually managed to clue herself in as to where they were during the chaotic and uncontrolled trip here.
“Yeah, there is, a real big one” Ditzy stretched out the “e” in real, sounding like a pleading foal for a moment. “I don’t think may ponies live there though.” She lowered her head.

Rainbow just looked on. She began to realise that she had been wrong about Ditzy, she was beginning to appear much more capable to Dash than previously assumed.
“How do you know all this?” Rainbow asked.
“I once got stuck in a fence for two days with a map over my head” Ditzy beamed.

Rainbow mentally erased her previous thought, this was still the same Ditzy she knew.
‘Oh well, might as well make the most of it’ she thought. Then she asked aloud “How big was the map?”
“Umm, about this” Ditzy said, balancing on her back hooves and holding her forelegs out to trace out a large rectangle in the air.
“No, no, I mean how much land did it cover?”
“Oh, I don’t think it had all of Equestria in. Most of it though” Ditzy said.

Rainbow nodded slowly, assuming Ditzy was right, she was glad to be in the same country as she was before.
“Alright, so we have a vague idea of where we are, that’s good” Rainbow corrected her earlier problem “But we still don’t know exactly where we are”

Ditzy opened her mouth to say something.
“And if you say “here” I swear I will buck you into the river” Dash stated forcefully.

Ditzy shut her mouth and quickly stepped further away from the water.
“Alright, problem two: Fluttershy here. Now we could just carry her around, but I don’t know about that thing in her. I mean, you said it’s nowhere important but I don’t think pulling it out would be a good idea, especially after what happened to her wing. So I say, until she wakes up, one of us carries her on our back. Problem three is food. We can’t rely on finding stuff to eat and drink every day. I mean, clouds can be rained for water, and we can follow rivers but otherwise we’re going to need a way to carry food around with us.” Rainbow finished her list of problems, staring intently at Ditzy.
“Erm...we could use bags?” Ditzy offered.
“Can you make bags?” Rainbow queried. “Because I can’t”
“I can try” Ditzy offered, and without waiting for approval, wandered towards the water edge. Reaching it, she glanced left and right, searching for something. After a moment, she spotted something on the opposite bank. Without a second thought she happily plopped into the slow moving water and slowly began to bob across to the other side. Rainbow watched the yellow mane bounce in and out of the water, and noticed that, despite the tiny current, Ditzy was floating downstream. With a sigh, Rainbow took off, flew over, grabbed Ditzy around the middle and hoisted her out of the water, depositing her on her target shore. Ditzy smiled her thanks and shook herself, spraying water into the air. Then, with her damp mane plastered across half of her face, Ditzy wandered down the bank, her head stretched out forwards, trying to spot again what she had seen earlier. Ditzy wandered up to a large plant with leaves the size of large water lilies that neither pegasus immediately recognised. Ditzy hopped and flapped her wings to gain a little height, wincing with her wing strokes, and latched her mouth around the base of a low leaf. She bit down on the plant, it was soft and tasted like tainted water, separating the leaf from the rest of the plant, and dropping her back to the ground. She spat out the chunk of stem from her mouth and stuck her tongue out, making gagging noises.
“You alright there Ditz?” Rainbow asked, lowering herself down beside her.
“That tasted icky” Ditzy told her, pulling her tongue back inside her head. “Look” she continued, gesturing a hoof towards the giant leaf. “If we fold it up, we can make a bag out of it”

Rainbow looked from the leaf to Ditzy and back again.
“You know what Ditz” Rainbow said, an impressed tone in her voice “Sometimes I think your parents gave you the wrong name”
“I know, I should have been called Huggs-a-lot!” Ditzy chimed in.
“Why?”
“’Cos I like hugs” Ditzy said, leaning in and giving Rainbow a neck hug. Rainbow pulled away, her face in a mix of surprise, suspicion and acceptance.
“Anyway” Dash said, untangling herself from the other mare. “This could work. We just need to work out how to fold it properly”

At this, Ditzy moved forwards and began fumbling with the leaf. She tried to lift it with teeth and fold over an edge, but a wet sound, like damp paper being torn, informed her that she had ripped the leaf. She looked down at the ruined leaf and sighed. Rainbow put out a hoof and pulled her back by the shoulder.
“Go keep an eye on Fluttershy, I’ll deal with this” Dash said, smiling. Ditzy grinned back, torn leaf still in her mouth, and jumped into the river. Rainbow approached the leaf, ignoring the splashing noises to her right, and began to think.

After a few hours, Dash had made little progress with the leaf. Ditzy had sat down beside Fluttershy and kept up a one sided conversation with her unresponsive body. Every now and then Rainbow would glance over at Ditzy, and was once caught looking, earning her a wave and a goofy grin from the other pegasus. Ditzy also glanced at Rainbow, but could not see any progress from where she was sitting, and every time she looked a voice in her head told her:
‘Hey, look after Flutty!’ This order slapped Ditzy’s mind into shape every time she looked away for more than a moment. She sat beside Fluttershy’s head, stroking her mane and feeding her berries.

She ran out of berries quickly though. Which left her with one less activity to occupy her time.
“No, darnit!” came Rainbow’s cries of displeasure as she ruined another of the giant leaves, followed by a splash as her frustrated whirl sent her into the river. Ditzy giggled to herself, raising a hoof to her mouth to hide it. “Hey!” yelled Rainbow as she surfaced. Ditzy opened her mouth to call back.

A dainty grunt made its way to Ditzy’s ears. She sat still with her mouth half open. A moment later a groan no louder than a rabbit’s cough made its way up from ground level.

Ditzy’s ears shot up at the first sound, and at the second her head jerked down. A grin spread across her face.
“Flutty!” she cheered. On the other side of the river, Rainbow Dash spun around. “Flutty, you’re awake!”

On the floor, Fluttershy’s eyes had begun to open. Her fragile eyelids slowly peeled themselves back from the bloodshot eyes.

Light seared into Fluttershy’s eyes. There were no shapes in her sight, just blurs and the glare of sunlight. Somewhere, she could hear somepony calling to her and calling around her, she could hear something echoing in her ears, bouncing around incoherently. Her body felt like it was made of leather, rubbing against itself as she tried to move.

A jolt of pain hit her. Fluttershy tensed her entire body, slamming shut her eyes and gritting her teeth. Something grabbed her by the shoulders, holding her still. Fluttershy resisted the urge to squirm.

She could feel it inside her. Pushing up through her midsection. The solid shaft amongst her delicate insides. She could feel bits of it pushing out into her, pressing against her lungs, her stomach, her thin muscles. Every slight move of her body jolted it.
“Fluttershy!” a voice called through the blur of sound. “Fluttershy are you alright?”
“...” Fluttershy weakly tried to open her mouth, but her jaw would not move. From the back of her throat she managed to grunt, but even her feeble voice grated her dried throat.
“Fluttershy?” she heard again, but could not make out the rest of the words. They collided in her ears and made a buzz of noise that hurt to hear. But she heard her name amongst the mess of sound. Somewhere in her mind flickered a thought.
‘Somepony needs you’ said the thought. She pushed it back. Her body was stiff and unresponsive.
“Don’t leave us” came a familiar voice by her ear. Something brushed against her face. It felt like a snout nuzzling her. “Flutty”
‘Di...’ The voice in Fluttershy’s head said. ‘I can’t just leave you. But it hurts so much...oh. Don’t be scared Fluttershy, its just a little pain. Everypony has to deal with –‘
“Ah!” she squeaked, she had tried to stand, and had got as far as moving a leg beneath her. The voices started up around her. One of them vanished off into the distance, towards the sound of water.
‘Be brave Fluttershy’ she told herself. ‘You’re needed’

And with that, she forced open her eyes once more.

“Flutty” Ditzy cheered, diving back towards Fluttershy’s face. She nuzzled the awakenng pegasus’ face and cooed quietly to her partner.
“Ditzy...please” Fluttershy coughed weakly “A ... a l...space please”

Ditzy pulled away from her marefriend and cocked her head. Fluttershy smiled weakly up at her.
“I was worried about you” Ditzy stated, as if somepony had ever doubted her.
“I’m sure you...were” Fluttershy said between coughs. “Can ... I ... drink please? If ...not much...trou...trouble”
“Here” Rainbow Dash flew into view, holding in her front hooves a folded leaf. She held the leaf towards Fluttershy. “Tilt your head back”.

Fluttershy did as instructed. Rainbow leaned forwards, keeping herself from falling with her wings, and tilted the leaf. Out of the folds came a small stream of water. Fluttershy felt the sun warmed liquid slide down her throat.
“Thank you.” She said quietly, still pausing for breath “Erm...if you don’t mind me asking...who’s ...ack....who's idea was it to use ... leaf as a ... bucket?”
“That was me!” Rainbow said proudly, throwing the leaf aside and standing triumphantly, completely ignoring her thought that Fluttershy should try to talk less. Ditzy gave her a confused look. “I mean, yeah, Ditz had the whole idea of using it to carry stuff, but I did most of the work.” Dash deflated slightly by the end of the sentence, having noticed Ditzy look across with a confused gaze.
“You ... could have ... just used a peice of cloud.” Fluttershy told her. "They have ... water in"

Ditzy hung her head disappointed.
“Oh but it was a good idea nonetheless, I’m sorry” Fluttershy blurted, before coughing heavily into the grass.
‘Don’t talk much’ Fluttershy told herself. ‘You’ll just hurt yourself’

Ditzy leaned in and straightened out Fluttershy’s mane with her nose.
“It’s okay Flutty” Ditzy whispered. “You rest, okay?”

Fluttershy smiled. She quietly reminded herself that the grey pegasus always seemed to have someone else’s interests at heart. She told herself that Ditzy was the best pony she could have hoped to find. As Ditzy continued to straighten her mane, Fluttershy pushed her head up slightly. In response, Ditzy brushed her head down the side of Fluttershy’s face and gently laid her head against Fluttershy’s neck. In the back of her mind, Fluttershy noticed Ditzy’s breathing slow down, as did her own, until they both breathed a gentle rhythm together.

Rainbow stood a little back and watched. It was cute to watch, but Rainbow knew there were more pressing matters. She cleared her throat loudly.
“Oh ... did you want to ... say something ... ack ... Rainbow?” Fluttershy mumbled.
“Yeah, I did” Dash said “Now, you might be wondering where we are. The answer to that is, I’ve got no idea” Rainbow took a moment to see the shrinking look on Fluttershy’s face, mentally scolding herself for enjoying it. “However, Ditz seems to think we’re in the north, and I see no reason not to trust her . . . erm . . . reasoning”

Ditzy gave her a large grin. Rainbow returned a small smile.
“So, if we’re going to get moving, we had better start soon. If we can make a bag to hold some food and pad up that thing sticking out of you, we should be able to start heading south” Rainbow continued. “Do you know how to make a bag Fluttershy?”
“Erm, I ... used to make one's for ...Angel” She offered.
“Great, if we can make a bigger one of those, that’ll be awesome” Dash smiled. “Back in a second.” Without another word Rainbow took off and grabbed another of the giant leaves.
“There’s already a leaf right here” Ditzy pointed out as Rainbow returned.
“Yeah...well...we might have to double the thickness of it. Don’t want it getting broken easily do we?” Rainbow congratulated herself on her quick thinking, before laying the leaf down in front of Fluttershy. “Okay, what do I have to do?”

In spite of the aches and pains of recently regaining consciousness after being impaled, Fluttershy managed to overcome them to direct Rainbow in making the bag for their food. It was simple, and had to be held in the mouth because there were not enough vines nearby to make anything more than a basic handle. Ditzy gathered a pile of berries and plopped them in the bag. Rainbow lifted it, testing the strength of the leaf and vine combination. Once satisfied at its quality, Rainbow put it down again.
“Alright, that’s great” she said “Now we should probably get moving sometime soon. With any luck, we’ll get somewhere else before the sun goes down”
“But what about Flutty?” Ditzy chimed.

Rainbow looked down at Fluttershy. Her punctured rear leg was nowhere near healed, and probably would not for a long time, but it was not bleeding. The red stain down her leg was enough to remind Rainbow of the dangers of walking on wounded limbs.
“We can carry her” Rainbow decided “Whoever hasn’t got the bag will carry Fluttershy.”
“That wasn’t what I meant” Ditzy said “I meant what about the thing in her belly?”

Fluttershy twitched at the reminder of the bamboo sticking through her, and let out a small whimper along with it.
“We’re just going to have to pad it and hope” Rainbow said “I thought I said that already”
“W... what about ... those big leaves?” Fluttershy asked timidly, Rainbow looked down at her curiously “Never mind”
“No, carry on, what were you going to say?” she said.
“It’s nothing, really” Fluttershy insisted.
“Fluttershy...” Rainbow said sternly.
“Well, um, okay ... If you get ... ahem ... one of those big leaves and ..." she paused to daintly cough up a small amount of phlegm "wrap it around me, and stuff it with smaller leaves and ... leaves and ... grass ... like padding” Fluttershy said, her eyes shut and a hoof tapping as she tried to remember each bit of her idea.
“That should work, just a minute” Dash darted off to gather the materials required, leaving a rainbow of colour around the clearing as she stopped in various places to grab leaves. Ditzy sat with Fluttershy, stroking her mane. Soon enough, Rainbow had returned with the materials, and laid them out next to Fluttershy.

It was an awkward procedure. First, the large leaf was placed beside Fluttershy, and then covered in a layer of grass and smaller leaves. After that, the two mobile mares carefully moved their friend onto the centre of the leaf, and then pulled the rest of the leaf up around her thin body. Ditzy held the leaf together at the top whilst Rainbow used the last of the vines not used in making the bag to tie the top together. Content, the two stepped back and admired their work.

It looked somewhat like Fluttershy was wearing a corset.
“I like it” Ditzy announced.
“This isn’t a fashion show, Ditz” Rainbow said, before turning back to Fluttershy “Do you think that’s good enough?”
“Yes, um...it should hold fine, thank you” Fluttershy said.
“Great” Dash smiled “Ditzy, grab the bag and any berries we missed around here, I’ll get Fluttershy onto my back, and then” she paused momentarily, unable to resist a little dramatic speech “we can go.”