Chapter 67: Treatment

Rainbow Dash had quickly flown Dusk back down onto the ground near the middle of the farmstead. After commenting on his weight once more, she flies off to continue to do her part of the weather duties. He could see a light covering of snow across the farm, which made the farm seem a lot more tranquil than he has ever seen it. The snow gave the trees a light white hue, giving off a certain beauty that you wouldn’t see on a normal day. It made the slow walk back to the farm house that little bit more peaceful.

It had almost made him forget that his wing still felt uncomfortably stiff. It took him a considerable amount of effort to put the wing back in its original spot.

‘Well I have just learnt something today, I should never overexert myself for foolish pride, like a bloody idiot. I’m smarter than that.’

If he counts out this annoying tidbit, than he could safely say that he rather enjoyed the short walk back to the main part of the farm. He could see area where Big Macintosh and Applejack were working. They both seem to be applebucking their individual portions of the farm, with the red stallion bucking and collecting the fallen apples faster than his younger sister. He walks across the farm over to where Big Mac is working and briefly greets the farmer, as he prepares to applebuck his first tree.

As his hind legs make contact with the thick apple tree, he feels a sharp pain in his right wing. Even though it hurt, it was brief enough for him to ignore. However, he feels the pain again as he bucks the tree for the second time. Sighing in annoyance, he calls Big Mac over to tell him about this problem. When the big stallion walks over to where Dusk is working, he starts to hear Dusk's reasoning for calling him over. He hears about the stiff wing, how Rainbow had to fly him down to ground level, and lastly, he is told about the strange pain that he feels when he applebucks.

Big Mac then thinks of an idea after hearing the last part, "Could you stretch out your right wing for me?"

Dusk, apprehensive about doing what the farmer wanted him to do just moves it around a little bit. He feels a moderate amount of pain as he shifts the wing around. He relaxes it again, and just tells the farmer that it's, "Not possible, Big Mac."

Hearing the answer that he expected to hear, Big Mac says to Dusk, "You should go home Dusk. Let your wings recover."

"Wait a second, what does a bad wing have to do with performing an action, which doesn't require wings? I don't see reason to go home over something as irrelevant as my wing" Says Dusk, stating a flaw in the farmer's logic.

"Well, you said that your wing hurt when you bucked the tree. I think that's reason enough." Responds Big Mac, leaving a stunned Dusk in his wake. He wasn't stunned at the farmer, but more so at himself for being such a complete and utter clot.

'I should have seen that coming, that was rather stupid of me to do something like that. Although, in my defense, that really seems to be the norm for me today.'

He submits to the apple farmer, after seeing his reasoning for wanting Dusk to leave the farm for the day. He says his good byes to the stallion and starts to walk away from the Sweet Apple Acres in the direction of Fluttershy's cottage. He looks over at his (possibly) injured right wing, and cringes when he sees the horrible state that it is in. While the feathers on the particular wing were almost excessively ruffled and messed up, he was more shocked at the wing itself. His right wing looked crooked and just wrong, despite the fact that it was folded into its most painless position.

He thought that it would be best is he could go see Fluttershy to see if she knew somepony who could fix his wing. He needs a small reconditioning of the wing to be able to fix the damage that he caused to it. He knows that it isn't injured, and this is treatable, but he needs to do it soon, or else his wing could become injured again. (knowing his luck) His brisk walk turns into a quick trot with this information in his mind.

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He steps into his marefriend's cottage, in a more stressed out and frazzled mood than he was before. His mood plummets even further when he sees a certain mare sitting on the lounge. He could see Rarity conversing with Fluttershy over a cup of tea, and while he knows that this is friendly enough, he could feel a migraine coming along. But, his (lessening) fear had to wait, since the matter at hand is a lot more important at the moment.

Despite this, a surprised Fluttershy is the first one to speak, “Oh Dusk, I-I didn’t know that you would be back so early today. I just invited Rarity over-”

She is stopped when Dusk speaks over her, “Sorry for interrupting Fluttershy, but I needed to come back because of a bit of an emergency. You seem, I finally gained the ability to fly again, but-”

“Egads, what happened to your wing?” Rarity melodramatically asks the stallion, interrupting him at the same time. Her sapphire eyes were practically glued to his damaged wing.

Fluttershy looks worryingly at Dusk, “W-What’s wrong with Dusk’s-” She catches a glimpse of the mangled wing, and is immediately saddened by the sight of it. “Oh... that doesn’t look too good...”

Dusk mentally swears at himself (again) for stuffing up his wing, before asking, “Is it really that bad?” The two nods from the mares confirms his growing fears. “Okay then, that is a bad thing, but I’m sure that it is still quite fixable. So despite what my wing actually looks like, I don’t think that my wing is injured in anyway, but if I leave it like this without treatment, than it may as well be. And so, it leads me to this question, (which I think you two are more than capable of answering.) do either of you two know anypony that can properly massage my wing?”

“Massage?” Asks Rarity confusedly, “How would a simple massage help with your wing?”

He starts to explain his reasoning, “Well, the way I see it, the bones and muscles in my wing are quite pained right now, and massages are supposed to soothe this sort of thing. I think you can see where I am going with this.”

"I... don't think it's supposed to work like that Dusk." Says Rarity. "They are supposed to relax the pony, not to fix you up." She seems a little bit hesitant about something.

"Well, its still worth a shot. And anyway, what else can I do? If I return to the hospital, (yet again) they'll probably wrap my wing into another cast for a week, and let's just say that I don't want that to happen again. I still think that this solution might be worth a shot, even if it doesn't work." He really wants to get his point across to the two mare, since he doesn't have much to lose anyway. (Except for his flight...)

After a few seconds, Fluttershy puts in some of her own input. "Well... um... I was going to recommend Aloe and Lotus to help you... but they haven't learnt how to massage wings, and their pegasi specialist is away for a few days for family reasons. Sorry..." The yellow coated pegasus actually sounds regretful as she tells him this.

Dusk hears this in her voice, and instinctively tries to comfort her. "Why are you apologizing Fluttershy? You haven't done anything wrong by saying that, it just means that I'll have to look harder." He then turns towards Rarity, and continues, "Speaking of which, I haven't asked you if you know of anypony that can help with my wing. So... do you know anypony who can help with my wing?" He asks, intentionally repeating himself.

"Well yes, I do know a mare who happens to be good at massaging wings... but I don't think you would like her too much." She is being intentionally vague to the stallion.

"Well then, who is it?" asks Dusk hesitantly. He had a feeling that he wouldn't like the answer too much.

"It's... me."

A tense silence fills the room as Rarity and Fluttershy await Dusk’s response. They were hoping that he would say something positive, to see if he had gotten over his fear.  “...Well, *sigh* I guess I have no other choice then...”

Rarity gives a small smile towards Dusk, thankful that he at least trusts her enough to let her do this. "That's good. I'll start the massage in 15 minutes from now. Fluttershy, do you know of any places that you would be comfortable for Dusk to lay down on?"

It took her no time to think of a response, "Well, you can use the bed if you want to."

"Ah good, that should be adequate space to massage his wing on." Rarity says in satisfaction. Her eye contact with Fluttershy starts to drift, as she tries to remember the location of said bed. "Fluttershy, isn't your bed inside the bedroom upstairs?"

"Um, yes it is. Why do you ask?"

"No reason, just wanted to see if I remembered." Answers Rarity.

Dusk had decided to add in to the conversation with a question of his own. "So Rarity, where did you pick up the skills to massage wings?" He asks curiously.

"Well... I have happened to be with a few stallions in my life, and one of them happened to teach me a few things about this sort of thing. He was a pegasi as well, so I did end up getting a lot of practice on him, but alas, things didn't work out between us." She seems completely unfazed by this.

"A pity."

"I can't guarantee that this plan of yours will work,  but I'll try my best."

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Dusk, Rarity, and Fluttershy all begin to walk up the staircase, up towards the main bedroom of the cottage. Dusk had insisted that Fluttershy should come along, “Or else I may instinctively spasm in fear.” When they had all gotten inside, Rarity had instructed Dusk to lay down on the bad, ('Yeah, this doesn't sound sexual in the slightest.') and to extend his right wing. Naturally, he objects to this...

"But I can't just stretch out a near crippled wing without it hurting in some way, shape or form."Complains the dark blue stallion.

Rarity just sighs in annoyance as she hears the whines of the 'Protector of Ponyville'. "Well then, you're just going to have to live with the pain then." She didn't even bother trying to hide the bittersweet tone in her voice.

"Great..."

Dusk turns his head around, and looks worryingly at his right wing. He knew that some intense pain is about to occur, and he hated knowing this. He begins to very slowly extend his wing, and is pleasantly surprised when he doesn't actually feel any pain in the wing. But when he had gotten it out to a half stretch, his eyes shoot up, and he yells out loudly in pain.

Fluttershy is the first (and only) one to worry, "Oh no, oh dear, what happened Dusk?"

"Ugh, it's like all of the pain that was missing at first just accumulated into one, and struck me when I least expected it." A thought crosses his mind, and he realizes something. "No wait, that is exactly what it felt like." He says in a deadpan tone to nopony in particular.

[IDEA]

"Well, I hope that won't happen again Dusk, that looked like it hurt." Says Fluttershy.

Suddenly, Dusk's expression grows much more darker, as his head starts to pump in adrenaline. “Well it’s going to hurt a lot more in a second...”

“Wait, wha-”

*CRACK* “AGHHH!” He had snapped his wing out to full stretch, causing an immense amount of stress to the appendage. (Not the best of ideas that he has ever had, but it got the intended result)

"Oh my gosh, oh no, are you okay Dusk?" Fluttershy asks in a panicked state.

"...No..." He painfully responds. He doesn't see the grimace on the other mare's face, as she remains in a stunned silence. "Theoretically... should be no broken bones..." He hadn't bothered using the correct grammar, and he didn't care.

"I-Is there anything I could do to help?" Asks Fluttershy.

"Yes, get Rarity to start the massage." Answers Dusk, whom is feeling a bit better than before.

This snaps the unicorn out of her stunned state, as she prepares her hooves for the massage. "Oh yes, that is a good idea. I'll try to be careful."

She reaches in towards the stretched wing to start the treatment. Her delicate hooves make contact with the stallion's near crippled wing, and she begins the massage...

'This actually feels sort of good.'

Suddenly, a minute after Rarity had started the treatment, a bolt of electricity from Dusk's body strikes Rarity's left forehoof, causing her to jump back in suprise, and slight pain. She shakes her hoof around to try and lessen the pain, until her eyes look upon something that both Dusk, and Fluttershy were staring at.

All three of them could see electricity pulsing around both of Dusk's wings for some unknown reason. The thin crooked lines of energy would just travel around his wing at seemingly random directions, moving along at impossible speeds. Dusk's next seven words describes the whole situation.

"What the buck is going on here?" Next Chapter: Chapter 68: Unexplained Estimated time remaining: 55 Minutes