Dead Mare's Gorge.
The evening sky had started to turn red when Rainbow Dash crested a hill on the outskirts of town. She and Thunderlane were on there way out to do a little flight training, and maybe settle a bet or two while they were at it. In the brief moment before her companion arrived, Dash looked to the North, gauging how much time they’d have before the growing storm rolled in. The stallion followed shortly thereafter, looking considerably more nervous than she did.
“You sure about this, Rainbow?” he asked looking down at the valley. “You know they call it ‘Dead Mare’s Gorge’ for a reason, right?”
“Relax ‘Lane-y,” she said using her old nickname for him, mostly because she knew it annoyed him. “It’s not like I’d ask you to do something I couldn’t.” she went on, silently daring him to see if he’d admit he was a weaker flyer.
A clap of thunder caused both ponies to look out over the gorge, when they did they both saw the storm slowly making it’s way towards them. There’s plenty of time for this, even if I have to go back for him. Rainbow thought, smirking as she turned back to him.
This mare is nutso. Thunderlane thought, casting a sidelong glance at her. But I’m not letting her win that easily. Mustering his courage, he took another look at the storm and asked “So, how’re we doing this? From here to the end, or are we coming back, too?” Just as he’d hoped, his false bravado had caught her off guard. Maybe she wasn’t serious?
“I’d say down and back’s a good place to start.”
Lunadammit. Okay stallion, you’ve got this. “I guess we should get this show on the road then, huh?” Even as he said it, he regretted his decision as Rainbow simply started walking to the edge. She walked up to it before calling out “What are you gonna take a running start?”
Deciding he wasn’t going to fold that easily, he took off to follow her. Quickly galloping towards the edge, he actually managed to jump past her as he shouted “You bet!” Just like that, they both shot out into the canyon at a breakneck pace.
To an untrained eye, it looked to be an even race, but for most anypony who knew her, it would have been fairly obvious that Rainbow Dash was holding back for her competitor’s sake. Can’t let him lose that badly. He might just skip work Monday if I do.
The storm arrived sooner than both had expected and they were maybe half way down the canyon when the winds picked up. Wind turbulence isn’t normally an issue for weather pegasi, they’ve been trained to fly right at tornadoes, but shortly thereafter, it started raining. Hard. In fact, the storm had rapidly exceeded what Rainbow Dash had been expecting from it, and she was starting to get worried. It’s getting kinda bad out here maybe we- no, I’ll be fine and I’m sure Thunderlane can handle himself.
As the rain kept pouring, she started second guessing her decision. I thought this was supposed to just be a typical storm, but this feels more like a monsoon. Did I miss a memo? As soon as she’d thought of it, her mind quickly flashed to her leaving the weather office earlier that afternoon, and the pile of paperwork she had decided to wait until tomorrow to look at. Oh horseapples, I must’ve.
As nervous as she was, she definitely wasn’t scared, Rainbow pressed on, deciding to reach the end of the canyon and stop Thunderlane on her way back. If he’s smart enough, he may have already gone back. At this rate, I don’t think I can blame him.
About a quarter mile behind her, Thunderlane was struggling to keep altitude. What in Tartarus was I thinking? This is nuts! As the rain kept up, he was finding it harder and harder to see in front of hi and put most of his effort into gaining some altitude. Don’t get too far above the canyon though, you may know how to deflect lightning, but it still hurts. A lot. Thankfully for him, there seemed to be a break in the winds and he was able to climb up out of the tree tops. Casting a quick glance down, he saw that the river was rising somewhat quickly. I swear, Rainbow knew this would happen, didn’t she?
Just as he thought it was clearing up, Thunderlane was struck by a sudden downdraft. Calling on all his flight skills he managed to pull himself out of the dive it had caused. Doing so, however, had robbed him of all the altitude he’d managed to gain, in fact he was even lower than before. He put a massive amount of effort into climbing out of the tree tops again, but was unable to see well enough through the driving rain.
Mercifully, the rain seemed to be legitimately letting up, though the wind was still an issue. At one point, a number of tree branches were blown loose and into the air in front of him. He was able to dodge them, only to fly right into the lower half of a tree top. He collided with the branches hard enough to fracture most every bone in his right wing, and a few ribs as well.
Time seemed to slow for him and everything was a blur as he skidded along the muddy ground, coming to a stop up against the canyon wall. It was only a matter of moments before the pain truly hit him. As soon as it did, he screamed out in agony.
Rainbow Dash, meanwhile, had slowed down considerably in order to keep her bearings through the storm. Is it finally letting up? She wondered as it gradually became easier to see through the rain. Although she believed she knew where she was, Rainbow had actually gone a fair amount less than she’d figured on, having only just managed to round the bend in the canyon. She started to wonder if she should head back when she heard Thunderlane’s scream.
Oh great, the storm’s got him spooked. Rainbow Dash mumbled to herself before realizing how far she surely was from him. Wait, even if he’s . . . I shouldn’t be able to . . . oh horseapples. She immediately turned around and headed back, hoping she didn’t collide with him mid-flight. After some time, she flew up just above the canyon to get a better look, now that the hain had let up considerably. The added altitude gave her a good enough vantage to actually begin searching for her cohort, though she didn’t have to look long to see the trail of blood. Oh no. Fearing the worst, she rushed down to the ground and quickly began following the trail back to its owner. There she found Thunderlane, alive but bleeding and seemingly severely injured yet still awake enough to recognize her.
“Dash, you’re a fool.” he coughed. He’d had enough medical training to know how bad off he was from a crash like that and with what little breath he had in him, he told Dash how to brace his wing so she could get him to the hospital back in town.
Making due with what was there, Rainbow quickly fashioned the brace, per Thunderlane’s instruction and a bit of her own training. With the makeshift wing brace on, Rainbow maneuvered to get Thunderlane on her back. Be glad buddy, this may be the only time you get to be on top. Now that he was on, and holding tight with as much strength as he had left, Dash carefully made her way into town.
Her progress was marred, however, as the storm had started to pick up yet again. Lunadammit, guys she muttered, Making a mental note to go and check who was in charge of this particular storm. Wasn’t supposed to get this bad . . . I know it wasn’t . . .
After a few intense minute of flying, including one instance where Rainbow had to quickly divert to the left to avoid a tree that had been difficult to see through the rain, they arrived at Ponyville’s hospital.
Making her way into the lobby, Rainbow shouted to get the secretary’s attention. “Hey! I need to get my friend to a doctor!” The secretary, a blue coated mare that Rainbow didn’t recognize from anywhere, came out from the back room. She entered the lobby to find Rainbow Dash standing, soaking wet, with blood dripping off her back, and the stallion she was carrying, whose wing appeared to be the source of at least some of the blood.
“What happened here?” the mare asked, quickly moving over to the desk and hitting an intercom. In doing so, she sent out a pre-recorded message saying. “Nurse Redheart to the lobby, Nurse Redheart to the lobby, please.”
The message, while prerecorded, was rarely used unless something serious had happened, so it only took a moment before the pony in question, a white coated mare with a pink mane, came dashing into the lobby. “I’m here, I’m here,” she panted having run down a decent sized flight of stairs. Taking only a small moment to catch her breath, she seemed to immediately understand what had happened, or at least what the result was. “Let me guess, training accident?” she asked rather matter of factly upon recognizing Rainbow Dash.
She almost didn’t have to ask what happened when she saw Thunderlane’s wing, casting a quick glance outside, she said. “Okay, let’s see what we can do. Here get him on my back.” she went on, saying that she could get him into a room while Rainbow helped get him checked in.
Watching her coworker and friend get taken back into the hospital proper, Rainbow sighed. “Sorry I got you into this,” she quietly said, turning back to the secretary.
As soon as Redheart left the room, the secretary went straight into checking Thunderlane in and only stopped to ask Rainbow what had happened.
“Oh, um . . .” she began, not sure how to explain it as she’d really only caught the immediate aftermath. “I don’t know exactly how he broke his wing, but we were flying through the canyons outside of town, getting some flight training before the storm rolled in.”
The secretary gave her a flat stare. Without Rainbow ever saying it, she figured she knew exactly which canyon she was talking about.
“We were both doing alright so I flew a bit ahead,” she continued, conveniently leaving out the fact that it was a race, although in the grand scheme of things, that wasn’t important. “From what I saw I think he got caught in a downdraft. Must’ve been a strong one too, ‘cause I know Thunderlane well enough to know that he would’ve pulled himself out of an average one.”
The nurse stopped her writing and asked “So, how exactly did he break his wing then?”
“I was getting there,” Dash admitted “I was going to say that I bet he did pull himself out of a dive, but didn’t have time to avoid a tree. There are a fair number of them out there, it’s part of the reason I’d flown ahead. To see if any were getting knocked into the river.”
The secretary didn’t quite buy her story, but still took a note of it in case the doctors needed to know any of it.
Nurse Redheart, meanwhile, brought Thunderlane into an examining room and, with the help one of her assistants, got him laying down on his back.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Redheart? Shouldn’t we at least,” she began before seeing that Redheart had, in fact, thought about the possibility of head trauma and was carefully lifting his head up and getting a pillow under it.
With that done, she told her assistant to watch him for a moment while she went down the hall to get some sedatives. She was going to have a long night putting his wing back together by the looks of it.
“Well, last thing I remember doc,” Thunderlane started, having woken up a mere two hours beforehand, he was still rather groggy from the heavy dose of sedatives he’d been on throughout the night. ”was a downdraft sending me into a dive. I must’ve managed to pull out of it, through sheer luck I’d guess, but when I did I was down below the tree tops. I tried going back up but I was still fighting it. I guess the wind changed direction because the next thing I knew I got thrown into a tree. I don’t really remember much after that, until Dash here found me.”
The nurse’s assistant looked up from his charts and said “Well, I guess you’re lucky she was there then?”
“Well, yeah. O’ course, I wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t for her but . . . whatever.”
“Thunderlane!” Dash began, not liking that he’d pinned this all on her. “You had plenty of time to say no. Don’t act like I forced you.” she finished, mentally adding Though, in hindsight . . I kinda did . . .
The assistant looked back and forth between them for a moment. “Regardless of whose fault it is, you,” she said, looking to Thunderlane. “Are very lucky your friend was there to bring you into town. You hit your head rather hard, and broke a fair number of bones, Thunderlane. Mostly in your wing, but a few ribs, too.”
The stallion nodded in understanding, especially as some pain started to come through the painkillers he’d been given.
“You’re gonna need to stay here for at least two weeks while they heal up. After that you should stick to light duty. Once you’re ready for discharge we can give a notice to you for your job. Though, considering who the captain is, I doubt it’s necessary.”
Rainbow Dash rapidly became more and more uncomfortable with the whole situation, especially as the assistant finished her explanation of how long he’d need to stay there. The bosses in Cloudsdale are gonna love hearing this. Thunderlane'll probably keep his job, but there’s a decent chance I’ve just lost mine.
“Dash, don’t worry about it.” Thunderlane spoke up from his bed. “If the weather bosses come down here looking into why I’m out, well, it was my idea in the first place.”
Rainbow Dash made sure to visit him throughout the next week, giving him some company as well as keeping him in the loop on the latest weather patterns. “Yeah, the first snow’s gonna be a mini-blizzard this go-’round.” she exclaimed. “It’s gonna be great!” after a moment of realization, she added “I wish you could be there, it’s gonna be extremely hard to maneuver the thing through the valley without getting over the Everfree and it’s only gonna be harder with one of our senior members out on medical.”
Offering a small, albeit pained, laugh of understanding, Thunderlane fired back “Yeah, I’m really not looking forward to missing the first snowstorm.”
Approximately a week and a half after he first entered the hospital, Thunderlane had been relocated into the general units and was getting close to discharge date. “Just do me a favor,” he said to Rainbow, who’d been about ready to leave to help Twilight with an experiment. “The next time you stop by Twilight’s library, can you find something on drumming for me? I’m gonna be stuck on ground duty for awhile so I may as well find something to pass the time.”
“Sure thing, Thunderlane.” Dash said, leaving for the day. Okay, gotta get going over to Twilight’s, she said I couldn’t be late so I gotta move. And with that, she took off for Twilight’s.
Rainbow, having slowed drastically but still moving quickly, made it to Twilight’s in time for her to cast the spell as they’d planned. It was only a moment before she entered it that she realized she’d been going much too fast.