Never Made The Cut

by Uz Naimat

To Lose & To Heal - Take 1 (17 May ʼ23)

Friendship is Magic, Sad, Drama, Twilight Sparkle

She stared at her reflection and flexed the wing.

It was the same as always - cold, metallic, unfeeling.

Sighing, Twilight focused her gaze on her right wing.

The fake, artificial right wing.

Intense rage bubbled up inside her and she furiously detached it from her body. She threw the prosthetic across the room and it broke upon impact with the wall. Still furious, Twilight lost control of her magic and, seconds later, her mirror was lying in a million pieces on the floor.

---

Twilight remembered that day as though it was yesterday.

She had woken up in the hospital in immeasurable pain. Her entire body was on fire, but the bulk of the pain was focused on her right wing. The doctor had asked her repeatedly if she was certain she wanted to look at it. Twilight had said yes.

And regretted it immediately.

To say the wing was a mess was the understatement of the millennium. Only a couple of feathers were left, barely sticking to the bones. All bones were broken, some fractured and others having snapped in half. The wing was done for, and the doctors had no choice but to cut it off.

The days that followed were the hardest. Twilightʼs body struggled very hard to adjust to the new change. She was constantly hurting. Medication helped, but there was only so much it could do. The sudden weight loss on her right side, the phantom pain, the surgery scars - it was all too much. Some days, Twilight did nothing but lie in bed and cry.

In the weeks since, she had grown accustomed to the pain. Her body had gotten used to it.

What Twilight had not gotten used to, however, was the loss of her wing. A part of her soul was lost along with it. And Twilight was doubtful she would ever recover from this.

---

Her fury subsided, Twilight walked over to the broken pieces of the prosthetic and examined the outcome of her anger.

Pieces of metal, screws and wires lay strewn by the wall. The prosthetic had been her first one; an experimental prototype made by the Equestrian Scientific Society. The wing was connected to her left feather-and-bone one and they moved in tandem with one another.

The prosthetic was not made for flight.

Gingerly, Twilight picked up the pieces in her aura and placed them in their box. Sheʼd sent it back to the Society for repair. It would take weeks before sheʼll get it back.

Twilight closed the box and set it aside. She looked around her bedroom, internally sighing at the mess it had become.

She needed to get out of the house.

---

Twilight strolled through the sunlit green fields of Ponyville.

She struggled with walking these days as her body had not grown accustomed to the missing weight on her right side. She was unbalanced and constantly fought to remain upright.

After five minutes of torturous walking, Twilight laid down on the field. She opened her only remaining wing and relished the feeling of feather on grass. She could feel the non-existent feathers on her right side touching the grass as well. And then, she made the mistake of looking up.

Bright shining sun, beautiful clouds, soft wind - the sky was perfect.

Twilight Sparkle hated it.

Deep Pegasus instincts welled up inside her, telling her that she belonged up there. The feathers of her left wing unconsciously flaring, what remained of her right wing was twitching as well. She should be soaring through the sky, the wind whistling under her wings. She should be up in the clouds, not stuck down there on the ground.

Unable to take it anymore, Twilight buried her face in the grass and let the tears fall. That was the main reason she stayed inside most of the time - to avoid looking at a sky sheʼll likely never fly through again.

After exhausting all her tears, Twilight slowly got up and trudged back to her castle.

---

Twilight didnʼt head back to her room. Instead, she made a beeline for the library.

The library had been virtually abondoned during her stay in the hospital. Dusty shelves, books strewn everywhere, closed curtains. The place had clearly not been touched in weeks.

Twilight approached the table where she sat last time. Her books, documents and parchments all laid where they were last left. Her unclosed ink bottle had long since dried out.

Last time Twilight had been in the library, she had been working on a new railway proposal between Equestria and Saddle Arabia. Since then, she had not been back to work. The ruling of the kingdom had been left up to Spike and the rest of the Equestrian High Council.

In the two years Princess Twilight Sparkle has been the sovereign of the kingdom, she had never taken a day off of work. But given the severity of her injuries, the doctors had ordered her to not even think about her job until they gave her the green light.

Not working had taken its toll on Twilightʼs psyche. Her job had become her entire life. Her duties were the first thing she did in the morning and the last thing she did before bed. She was always busy.

The convalescence period was the complete opposite. Twilight did nothing but lay in bed and read. Occasionally, sheʼd get up and take a walk.

Author's Note:

Yet another one that ends abruptly.

This was To Lose & To Heal’s original draft before A Thousand Words II contest was announced, and I had to completely re-work it.

Comments

[Chromentazol]

I like seeing the changes made due to the shift from a longer story to a 1k word story, especially seeing which part you kept and which you didn't. Where there other takes?

[Uz Naimat]

11737542
For To Lose & To Heal, there was only this take and the final version. But then Byciclette announced their kiloword contest and I realized this was the perfect subject matter. So I scrapped it and started over. It is interesting to note that FanOfMostEverything commented on my story and said that the subject I chose for the contest for a longer story. Looking back now, I probably should’ve chosen a different subject and finished what I started here. But oh well, what’s done is done.

But I’m really glad you enjoyed this. Thanks for giving it a try!