Bedridden

by Red Spark

A Big Drop

Rainbow Dash spiralled upwards and arced across the sky like a true rainbow, her mane and tail painting ribbons of its colour across the sky. Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie and Applejack had been called to the top of a small hill a way back behind Twilight’s library to watch her perform a new stunt she had been working on. Fluttershy was ensuring the safety of a migration of rabbits and Rarity had been too busy to witness ‘Silly tricks that would inevitably end with her in hospital’, as she had put it.

Rainbow Dash had often called her friends out to see her stunts, although most new stunts went wrong within a matter of minutes and ended up with her injured in some way; but whether it was a broken bone or just some minor scrapes and bumps, she would always be back up in the clouds within a few days of the accident.

Rainbow Dash pulled up sharply, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with Twilight’s tree home. She kept pulling up until she had completed a full loop, before shooting straight up, directly through a ring of clouds.

Earlier that day, Rainbow Dash had decided to try to combine two different stunts; her signature Sonic Rainboom and the classic Corkscrew manoeuvre. She was attempting this now. She shot back down through the ring of clouds and began to feel a familiar white barrier pushing against her as she dove. The white barrier pushed back more and more as she pressed onwards.

“Alright, phase two!” Rainbow Dash smirked, as she started to roll in midair.
Rainbow’s body got tired very quickly as she dove, but she couldn’t give up; not with her friends watching. She continued to dive, occasionally catching cries of cheer from her friends. She couldn’t let that distract her though. She pressed on. Suddenly, Rainbow Dash realised just how close the ground. One thought ran through her mind:

‘Should I slow down and make sure I don’t end up in hospital again? Or should I try to perform it, and use the manoeuvrability of the Sonic Rainboom to pull up at the last second and blow away my friends with how awesome it was?’
The answer was clear to her; she wasn’t going to pull it off. Chickening out wasn’t her style but neither was being squashed flat; plus she’d stayed in hospitals for what felt like weeks before. She didn’t want that happening again.

Dash started pulling up out of her trick, but it was too late. She hit the ground with such force that it knocked her completely unconscious. Her landing had been shallow enough to allow her body to skid across the small hill though, stopping just a few feet away from her friends.