G4.05: Taking Stock
James twitched her wings one after another, shaking them against her side. But the irritation only got worse. She whimpered, and this time she was loud enough that Lightning Dust heard her.
The pony hovered in the air over their house, pushing bits of cloud in her mouth. This was apparently a weekly process for ponies who lived in cloud-houses, replacing bits that had drifted away and generally giving the structure attention. But how could she question her when the results were obviously successful. Whatever “actually” allowed pony structures to hold together didn’t matter to them.
“What’s wrong?” Lightning Dust stopped in a dead hover, looking down towards her with concern. Somehow she seemed to know exactly what James was thinking, because her eyes jerked to her wings. The pegasus left her bits of cloud behind, and landed on the front “yard,” looking expectant.
“I, uh…” she whimpered, hoping that maybe she would be able to use her poor Eoch as an excuse. “Confused.”
“Sure you are.” Lightning Dust sunk down onto her haunches right in front of her. Her eyes narrowed, and she extended one of James’s wings with one leg. James tensed at someone else’s touch on the delicate organ, but Lighting knew exactly how to move it without hurting her, extending the wing in the natural way so as to not cause discomfort.
“When was the last time you preened this?” she asked, in the tone of a mother who had found her child in bed without brushing her teeth first.
“Uh…” James blinked, trying to come up with alternative translations to what she’d just heard. “The last time I… what? What does that word mean? Preened.”
Lightning pushed her back a few steps, towards the fountain that was at once their source of water, new clouds, and bathing area. James stumbled, not able to resist, though her confusion was growing. Why was Lightning so mad at her? “Don’t play dumb with me, Lucky. You’re going in there, and you’re going over both of your wings to my satisfaction. I can see a dozen feathers out of place.”
That is what preen means. Someone with another career might not even recognize the word. But now that she thought about it, it did make sense. Birds did it, and her wings were rather birdlike. It was wrong to expect them to just stay together perfectly and need no maintenance. Half of the special soaps and waxes that Lightning Dust kept around her bath were wing-related. Where everything else they had was the cheapest that money could buy, she spared nothing on her wings.
“I never…” She winced, shuffling from one hoof to another. “I don’t know… how.” Her voice was a tiny squeak. “I’ve never done that before.”
Lightning Dust’s eyebrows went up. “Your wings were perfect the day I rescued you. Perfectly clean, freshly waxed, not one out of place. Do you really expect me to believe your parents did it for you, at your age?”
She shook her head. “My… machines.” The rest of those words didn’t translate well. She certainly couldn’t explain that her body was freshly made and that all her feathers had been grown and arranged by a robot. “Did it for me. Never learned how. Honest!”
She looked up, meeting Lightning Dust’s skeptical eye with all the innocence she could muster. Her wings kept itching painfully, and she rubbed one up against her side, wincing as it didn’t help.
James might not be her proper size or age anymore, but being small did have one advantage: everyone thought she was cute.
“Okay,” Lightning Dust said, exasperated. “I’ll pretend I believe you this one time. But I’m not going to baby you from here out, kid. If you don’t take care of your wings, you can’t expect them to take care of you.” She gestured, and James climbed over the edge of the water. Lightning selected one of the bottles, dropping a little from the end into the water until it foamed up. “This is a de-greaser. Only use it after a long time without proper care. It strips wax, so you don’t want it to be part of your routine normally. But those wings look bad. You smell like you got lost on a migration flight during a thunderstorm.”
Lucky sunk down into the foamy water, not exactly sure what she was supposed to be doing. But the natural flow quickly filled the water with thick foam, smelling like a car wash. “Get your wings in it!” Lightning instructed. “Cover both of them as thick as you can, then I’ll help with the brush. See the clip on the wall there? If you don’t have anypony else with you, you put the brush there and rub up against it. But my shift is in an hour, so… we don’t have time for that.”
Lucky obeyed, and soon enough Lightning Dust had the brush’s wooden handle in her mouth. She couldn’t talk then, only gesture with her wings and make frustrated sounds whenever James didn’t respond correctly. It hurt, but this time the pain was more refreshing than something she wanted to get rid of. It was like a deep massage after a workout. The water went from clear to a shade of off-orange, with lots of little brown bits floating in it. My wings were that gross?
Then Lightning pulled the drain, letting fresh water wipe the suds away before replacing it and letting the basin start to fill again.
“Kay, that was the easy part.” Lightning extended one of her own wings all the way, nodding over at them. “Go on, Lucky. What do you notice about my wings. And don’t you say a word about me babying you, I already gave you the chance to be honest. We’re going from the beginning, just like you wanted.”
But James didn’t complain, despite her assertions. She looked down, searching for what Lightning Dust wanted her to see. “I, uh…”
“Look at the feathers,” she said, her voice softening a little. Either she was realizing that James really didn’t know, or she was just tiring out of being so confrontational. Either one would work for James. “There’s an order, see? No feathers are poking up from below. There’s a natural layer to things, and a direction. As you fly, they can get confused. The edges of some poke up. And if you really let things get out of hand, then you can get broken or even infected feathers growing with the good ones. Whoever told you that the bad feathers would just fall out from flying is wrong. And your wing there is proof.”
James held out her own, just as Lightning had done. In a way this was something for her to be proud of, since two weeks ago she wouldn’t have even been able to do that much. “But I can barely glide. Why would I have… infections?”
“Because you move your wings,” Lightning answered. “They’re out a lot, and that means they’re going to get worn. Not only that, but keep them folded all the time, and you’ve got somewhere warm and dark and wet. That’s… the worst possible thing for keeping something clean. If your wings get really bad, you wait for whole new feathers to grow in before you can fly again. You know how long that takes?”
Lightning didn’t actually wait for her to answer, just leaned in and declared in an ominous voice, “Two years. And you’re lucky, too. Other creatures have some of their feathers for life. If a griffon loses their guide-feathers, they just won’t be able to fly straight ever again. Or even get off the ground, in some cases. Ponies regrow all of them every few years, but… that is not an excuse for bad care.” She pointed with one hoof. “See here? This feather is broken at the end. It’s stuck in your wing, making it itch like crazy I bet. The new one will push it out, but not before it gives all the feathers around it a chance to get infected too. Is that what you want?”
“No!” Lucky squeaked, staring down at the broken feather in horror. And now that she knew what she was looking for, it wasn’t the only one. There were several that were frayed like it, and plenty more out of place. Compared to Lightning’s smooth wings, her own were a mismatched patchwork quilt. She held out her other wing, and found more of the same on that side. At least the soap made them not stink so bad.
“Should be enough water in there,” Lightning said, nodding towards the basin. “Get low so it can soak. Warm is best… helps loosen up the pores and stuff. But we don’t have that, so cold will do.”
Lucky lowered herself down to obey, splayed flat against the cloud. She shivered a few times from the chill, but adjusted quick enough. Pegasus ponies seemed quite good in cold weather. “How often do we do this, anyway?”
“Every day,” Lightning Dust answered. “Well… this part, and the next part. But when you do it so often, it’s not so bad. Soak, clean, then preen. That’s what my mom used to say. That’s… the last step.” She gestured, and Lucky moved over, standing sideways on the edge of the basin and letting the other pony pull her wing across. “Now you move your head along the wing, looking for feathers that are out of place. Nudge the lower ones back into place under the upper ones. And if one’s broken…” She bit down, and Lucky felt a brief, sharp pain. She jerked her wing back, leaving a bright yellow feather in Lightning’s mouth, with a few dribbles of blood on the shaft. She spat it out, then gestured impatiently back. “Jerk straight out, quick as you can. If it’s broken, your body already wants to get rid of it. The replacement is already trying to push it out. You’re just helping it, and getting rid of a place for gross stuff to grow in the meantime.”
Lucky gritted her teeth as she stuck her wing back out. There were a few more painful jerks, all in places where the itching was the worst. But with the cold of the water and the broken feathers gone, her wing already felt better.
The rest of the process didn’t hurt so bad. She had to stand so close to Lightning that she could feel the mare’s heartbeat close to her own, almost as rapid despite her greater years. There was no getting the scent from her nose, a smell that had long transformed from “barnyard” in her brain to “safe.” Whatever Lightning was doing, it rapidly stopped hurting and became comfortable again. She moved in straight lines from the base of her wing to the tip, settling feathers with each pass with her mouth.
Lucky’s ears flattened to her head in embarrassment—she should be embarrassed about this, just like the first time she’d taken a bath here. But Lightning Dust’s annoyance was gone, and she brought no embarrassment of her own. “There,” she said. “Lower that wing back down, let it soak for a little.”
Lucky did, hissing with pain as it touched the cold water. Little tendrils of bright red oozed for a few seconds, before diluting away in the water. “Am I… broken?”
Lightning Dust chuckled, touching her shoulder with one reassuring wing. “No, sweetheart. That’s just what happens when you put it off. It doesn’t hurt this bad when you make it part of your routine. I should’ve known… that smell had to be coming from somewhere. But now you know.” She nodded towards her other wing. “When your left stops hurting, I’m going to sit here and watch you do the right, okay? I count… only three broken feathers on that side. I know you can do it.”
I wish you would, Lucky wanted to say. Instead she lifted her head back over the edge of the water, then struggled to do what had taken Lightning Dust only minutes. She could see now why cleaning the wings was the important first step, considering her mouth was all over them. She could only imagine how much worse it would taste if they were dirty. But for all she was worried about it, her wings and neck both were flexible enough that the task was easy. There was a rhythm to it, an instinct. After watching Lightning Dust go through the whole thing once, she seemed to know what to do.
“Not bad,” Lightning Dust said, gesturing for her wing. “You missed… down here, by the end.” She lowered her head, fixing the feathers herself. “It’s easy to miss them—some ponies don’t even care, since they’re always getting moved around by flying anyway. But it’s the professional way to preen.” She straightened, lifting a little container from the shelf. “Now, since we degreased, you’ve got to wax them. You make wax on your own, but… this stuff is better. Professionals strip their own wax on purpose before shows and stuff. But we’ll save it for when your wings get really desperate, like they were earlier.”
“I can… actually do it,” Lucky said, as soon as the wax was on, and her wings were sparkling. There was only a faint itching from the places that had been tormenting her before, and it was already dying down. “I really did it.”
“Obviously.” Lightning Dust pulled her close, mussing her hair with a wing. “You’re a pegasus, Lucky. What did you expect?”
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Surprise chapters are awesome! Thanks.
Cute Chapter!
Is there a patron option to get the extra epilogue? I don't like hard covers as they give me eye strain.
I loved this chapter !!
Pegasus preening does not need to be erotic - it annoys me when all the Aloe and Lotus spa stories have Sex tags.
You said this will not actually make it into the book?
Pity.
now this is a grate surprise this morning.
This is a great little chunk of world building. The "learning how to be what you are" chapters have always been some of the strongest in this story, and this is no exception. Nice work, Starscribe.
Whoa, new chapters! Not that they're unwelcome!
Fun little chapter... I should go buy the book.
Yes! I was just beating myself up last week for not making the original Indigogo.
9550040
Your comment reminded me of https://www.fimfiction.net/story/409301/preenhub
Birb chapter. Did Mixtape commission this?
Oh, thats nice. I love this.
Pegasi being pegasi will never not be adorable, and Lightning Dust playing playing Mom for Lucky is especially so. Gods, I love this story.
Lightning Dust is best pegamom. Looking forward to getting that hard copy.
Well I certainly wasn't expecting a new chapter, much less a surprise print project! I am thankful that it got fully funded.
Nice 'n comfy chapter. Thank you. Congrats on the print run. Sadly I was unable to join.
Frustrated horse noises
Dhhhh so CUTE >_<
The amount of detail and tenderness you put into this chapter on preening is excellent, Starscribe.
I feel like I'm reading a completely different author, almost - you have quite a range.
Preening with Lightning Duet, the cutt st thing you'll ever see.
And why do griffons have permanent feathers but ponies don't? Do eagles really lose the power if flight if they lose their primaries?
"Sweetheart?"
Seriously, though, even in a parental position that seems quite OOC for Lightning. Then again, it sounds like this was written after the story was finished, so if she's gone full-on pegamom by the end I can see you slipping that in after writing her that way for a while. Guess I'll find that out later.