"To Tartarus with the peg leg, give me another hook."
–Captain Blackmane, 480 CE.

It was no surprise to Thunderball that Meriwether was the first to visit him. She was convinced that nopony could be happy inside of a hospital, despite Thunderball's protests that Ponyville General was charming and the staff was friendly, not to mention the regular visits her recieved from Princess Twilight and her friends.

Of course, the last time Thunderball had seen her was the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manehatten. Her room was lit by harsh fluorescent lighting, and smelled strongly of antiseptic solution. All of her hair was missing, along with a good portion of her left wing. She lay in the bed utterly lifeless, having just come out from under anesthesia and still reeling from her purification rituals.

It was a poor way to celebrate getting one's cutie mark. (A winged sword was considered lucky in his family. Her survival was, but the method of acquisition certainly was not.)

The contrast with the young mare who had slipped into his room was striking. Her teal coat had a silky sheen, and her electric–blue mane grew thick and strong. The long jacket, gloves, and boots she wore hid most of her body, but he could tell from her posture that she was in good health and high spirits.

"So, what's the surprise?"

She looked at him playfully. "What makes you think there's a surprise?"

"This family's always up to something. I'd be shocked if you weren't wrapped in some sort of plot."

Meriwether giggled as she tied a rope to his bed. "Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I just wanted to take a nice stroll around Ponyville with you this evening. Nothing sinister about it. So, up for a romantic moonlight walk?"

She threw the other end out the window and rappelled down. The sound of her hooves tapping against the hospital walls barely registered above the chirping of crickets. Thunderball waited for her to rappel down before untying the rope and gliding down to meet her. The pair stuck to the shadows as they made their way out into the streets. While Ponyville was hardly known for its nightlife, there were enough bystanders around to make them cautious. Being seen together in public was something their family generally avoided.

Meriwether's route took them through the center of town, and past the remains of the Golden Oaks library, Thunderball paused as they drew near and looked at the remains sadly.

"Do you miss living in a basement?" Meriwether gently teased.

"It beat the barracks." Thunderball gave it a wistful look. "I liked the place. It had character."

"So where to now, after you're discharged?"

There was a moment of hesitation. "Well, Princess Twilight offered me a spot in her new castle..."

Meriwether smiled salaciously. "Is she looking for a bodyguard, or a consort?"

Thunderball turned beet red. "You've been around Phrase Mark for too long. Besides, Her Highness currently has her eyes on somepony in the Royal Guard."

"Yeah, I heard something about that," Meriwether chuckled. "Another pegasus, right? Well, at least she has taste."

Thunderball moved to smack her on the head. She instinctively blocked him with her left foreleg, which met Thunderball's hoof with a dull clunk.

"What the…" Thunderball grabbed her foreleg and felt something far more solid than anypony's limb. His face went from flushed to deathly pale in an instant. "Don't tell me… not again?"

Meriwether jerked her head towards an empty alley. Once they were safely inside, she shrugged off her coat to reveal a pair of wings. Her right one was as good as that of any other pegasus, while most of her left was made of a dull grey metal, with flat blades in place of feathers. The left glove was the next to go, revealing a prosthetic that replaced the knee and everything below it.

Thunderball touched the artificial limb gingerly. "When did this happen?"

"A year and a half ago, shortly after the Manehatten Incident. We were lucky to have caught it relatively early — could have lost the entire leg if we hadn't. Still, I guess being clean for ten years is a pretty good run." She gave her best comforting smile, the same one she had put on when Thunderball had last seen her. It was as unconvincing as last time. "Hey, its not so bad. Take a look."

The prosthesis came off with a sharp twist. Thunderball saw that it attached to a metal socket implanted in her stump. A close look revealed that the same system had been adapted for her artificial wing as well. He held the prosthetic leg in his hooves, probably more carefully than was needed given its heft. It seemed like a very sturdy design.

His gaze returned to the wing. "Can you fly?"

Meriwether responded by hovering above the ground. She wobbled back and forth, as if she were a filly in flight camp, but there was no denying that she was airborne under her own power for the first time in a decade.

It was a full minute before Thunderball could speak again. "Where did you get this? The most advanced prosthetics I've seen don't have a full range of motion, and the wings only allow gliding."

"I got sick of losing body parts, so I called in a few favors. Got access to some rather interesting research, some of which hasn't even been published yet."

She took her leg back and re–attatched it in one swift motion. Thunderball could see the wrist joint roll around, as if she were cracking it.

"So, it turns out that titanium screws used to hold fractured rat bones together will become tightly integrated into the bone mass. A research team has been trying to apply this technique to prosthetic limbs for years, but there's a lot of work to be done before it can be declared safe. I wasn't willing to wait for them to figure it out, so I got Flash Point, Phrase Mark, and Daisy to help me design something."

Meriwether stretched her wings, just as she had done after his flying lessons.

"You have to keep the bone and screw ice cold, otherwise the heat from the screwing will kill off the bone. And you have to make sure the end of the bone is in contact with a large enough surface area so that the attachment point is secure, otherwise a moderately heavy impact may cause the bone to fracture. But if you can work around that, then you've got yourself a solid base to work with."

"But how is it moving?"

"Direct connection to my nerves. Had to be fully conscious while doing it to confirm that the wiring was correct. Horrible experience. Would not recommend."

Thunderball's gaze moved between her wing and leg. "You did it twice."

Meriwether closed her eyes to hide the tears welling up beneath her eyelids and shrugged. "What can I say? I wanted to get out again."

Thunderball seized her in a tight hug.

"Hey, you ok there, pone?" Meriwether's voice quivered as tears fell into her mane like raindrops.

"I should have been there for you. You needed me. You all needed me. Especially after Zanzebra...Tartarus take it, if I had done my duty, none of this would have happened to you."

"And who knows what would have happened to you?" she whispered. " We don't blame you for leaving. You had to walk your own path, and it took you where you needed to be. Besides, we'll be seeing a lot more of each other from now on."

The body of a khaki pegasus with a greyscale mane floated in a cocoon full of thick green liquid. She was smiling in her sleep, as if in the middle of a perfect dream. The underground chamber that held her was dimly lit by patches of fluorescent fungus, and illuminated dozens more pods. Some of them were full, but most were empty.

A crowd of changelings stood in the chamber, jostling each other for a position at the front. Two armored soldiers stood in front of the pod, restricting access to the pony. They wore a pair of matching scowls and seemed to be the only thing standing between the crowd and anarchy.

"Listen up!" the taller of the pair growled, "No pushing, shoving, or biting in line, and absolutely no sneaking away more love than you've been allocated. The last thing we want is for these ponies to start having nightmares — Princess Luna's taken it upon herself to sort out nightmares, and we absolutely do not want her meeting somepony who's been declared missing. Got it?"

"And if there's another food riot, I swear by Celestia's blooming flanks that I will grab the instigator and toss them to the quarry–eels," his partner sneered. "Now stop your whining, form a straight line, and step up slowly."

The room filled with angry chittering, but the changelings ordered themselves as the guards demanded. The first one in line walked up to the cocoon and touched it with his horn, drawing out a thin sliver of energy.

Inside the cocoon, the pony fidgeted.