My Little Dashie : A Threequel

by EpicBG

First published 3rd of January, 2012

A sequel to a ty500600's sequel of ROBCakeran53's classic story 'My Little Dashie'

My Little Dashie by ROBCakeran53 left many wondering 'What happened next?', ty500600 took the initiative to give the story an ending, to grant closure to all those saddened hearts. The ending gave closure, as intended, but still left the readers with many questions, myself included. I have taken the liberty to answer some of those questions in this epilogue/story.

Note: In this story, ty500600's Epilogue is only true to a degree, yes it happened but it happened differently.

Dad has been in Equestria for five years now, but what has happened during his time there? What will happen in the future?

This story was initially going to be just an epilogue but I've put some thought into it and I wish to continue the tales of Dad and Dashie.

My Little Dashie : http://www.fimfiction.net/story/1888/My-Little-Dashie

My Little Dashie : A Sequel : http://www.fimfiction.net/story/5284/My-Little-Dashie%3A-A-sequel

My Little Dashie: First Bath : http://garuuspike.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4ckqll

My Little Dashie : A Sequel - Epilogue (Prologue)

“Daddy?”

The voice echoed in my head, it really is my Dashie. The voice I hadn’t heard in so long was finally reunited with me. There I stood for what must’ve been only a few seconds, however it felt like an eternity. I could feel the tension melt away as she turned around, her rose eyes penetrating into my soul. This really is my daughter, she’s alive and well. ‘Don’t cry. Don’t. Don’t freaking - Aw screw it.’ I thought. I felt warm tears slide down my face, etching their path down my cheeks. Dashie had already been crying, but I don't know why. She stood up and inspected me from afar.

“Is it really you Daddy?”

Her words floated into my ear, bounced around in my head for a bit and then went out the other ear. Neither My brain nor I could understand what had just happened. One minutes I'm at home staring at the note which Dashie somehow re-wrote, the next I am in a clearing looking for my daughter on a beach. I finally comprehended what had happened when I felt another tear streak it’s way down my face. I had found my daughter. My little Dashie.

“Yes, It’s me, Dashie. We can be together again, forever this time.”

I began to slowly make my way towards her, being careful not to scare her. For all she knows I could just be a figment of her imagination, nothing more than a hallucination, a way to cope with stress brought on by her own subconscious thoughts. I began to close the gap between us, we were no more than a few feet away from each other now. I could see the pain in her eyes, her thoughts rushing to comprehend what’s happening.

“It really is you, Daddy!”

Dashie stood up from her haunches and trotted over to me. I knelt down as she reached out her hoof to touch my chest, probably because she couldn't believe that I was actually there. When she made contact with my chest her face beamed like nothing I’ve seen before, not even when she got her cutie mark. She pulled me into an embrace and said these four words.

“Daddy, I love you.”

“I love you too, Dashie.”

We embraced each other for what felt like forever, a myriad stars could be going supernova and nothing else would matter. I was reunited with my daughter, I’ve truly overused this ancient meme but dammit, I need to say it because it really happened, you’d think that by this time of it happening I’d have a heart attack, but no. To say it one final time, I felt my heart explode. Twice. I felt her tears hitting my back as we hugged, heard muffled sniffles and a constantly tightening grip around my chest. I let myself go, I couldn't bottle up the tears anymore. I cried like I never have before, my eyes were leaking so much tears that I swear I got lightheaded. I squeezed tighter, being careful not to hurt Dashie. We both loosened the embrace until we were looking into each other’s eyes. Her normally rose colored eyes were now red and puffy, I can only imagine that mine were too.

“What now, Pops? You’re here with me in Equestria, there’s no way for you or me back to Earth.”

“We live. All that matters is we‘re together. Nothing will pull us apart again. Nothing. Not Princess Celestia, not her protege, no one.”

-----

I’ve been living in Equestria for just about five years now, I have my own cottage on the edge of Ponyville near the Everfree forest. I’m no more than a short minute's walk from Fluttershy’s cottage actually. Dashie’s dreams came true, she’s a Wonderbolt now, apparently she has both her memories from the television show adventures as well as the ones she shared with me on Earth. She’s frequently performing at shows, so I’d initially thought that I wouldn’t see her much, and honestly I was okay with that. Every parent must let go eventually, but she always visits me daily, always sleeping over in my cottage. Every possession I owned back on Earth was abandoned, left to be taken by either the passage of time or looters, but by some mysterious force the old photo album made it’s way into my new home. It’s magic I guess, I don’t have to explain anything. Sometimes I feel homesick but then I remember the whole reason I’m not back home: Dashie. She is my life, without her I would’ve ended my pain long ago with a six foot long rope and my chandelier.

Before her I’ve known nothing but pain, my young-adult years were filled with loss and bereavement. It will be as if I never existed, I only did in theory back on Earth. There’s just too many people there to care about just a single human being. I was a single grain of sand, my life meant nothing. No matter what I did, I would always be nothing to anything. I was one person on a planet of over seven billion people, on a planet in a galaxy of over fifty billion planets, on a galaxy of well over five hundred billion other galaxies. However with Dashie my life means something, I make her happy and she makes me happy. That's all that matters. I’m well into my forties now, I’m not an old man quite yet, but I feel it sometimes. I did not live my life in vain however, I accomplished something. I kept my parents wish, the one to be happy, especially for my Mother, but something else also. Something that resides in us but is beyond us: The Magic of Friendship.

Princess Celestia was not too pleased with me returning to Equestria. She tried many, many times to send me back to Earth, every time ending with me unharmed and in Equestria. She eventually accepted that my existence in Equestria was nothing but a fluke, the gap between our worlds was forever closed with me being the only evidence of another world. I am the first and last human in Equestria. The ponies of Ponyville were initially scared of me, an alien, but with the help of Dashie and a certain mint green unicorn, I reassured them that I don’t want to harm them. Apparently humans are a creature of myth here in Equestria, like the Loch Ness Monster or The infamous Bigfoot. Not being able to eat red meat is a bummer too, but it's not much of a problem, just a minor inconvenience. I've never had a problem with fruits, vegetables, fish, eggs, et cetera. Though I did like red meat, I'll sacrifice anything to stay with my daughter.

So here I am, sitting here on my plush couch flipping through page after page of my dusty old photo album. Pictures of Dashie’s first bath, her first words, her doodles and drawings, our baking mishaps, her first preened feathers, getting her cutie mark, all our memories together back on Earth in this book. Sadly I am not able to conduct magic, however I was offered by Celestia herself if I wanted to be a pony, weird, I know. I don't even know how that would be possible, but then again this world has magic: something Earth seemingly has none of, therefore a lot of seemingly impossible things are possible here. I just have to get used to them. I declined to offer, I wanted to differ from the norm, to be myself. Maybe I'll take her back on the offer in the future, I've always been curious about pony anatomy. I would miss my fingers, and having hooves would take lots of getting used to, but it might be a fun experience. I’ve experimented with means of flying and the closest that I’ve gotten is a sort of arm-powered wings that half-work, one day I will figure out something. I’ve been meaning to ask Twilight if she can assist me in getting a pair of wings like she did with Rarity in that old episode, Sonic Rainboom, but every time I see her I forget. I guess I really am getting old. I’d give anything to be able to fly freely in the air with Dashie. Just her, me, and the heavens above, not a care in the world about anything but each other. About my little Dashie.

A New Day

“Ugh…damn it! Not again!”

I fell asleep on my couch with the photo album open again, most of the pictures were spread about everywhere that they shouldn’t be. On the floor, in the cracks of the couch, and one even managed to make it’s way into my shirt collar somehow. Thank goodness none of the pictures were ruined, I would’ve never forgiven myself for even the slightest of wrinkles or folds on even one of them. When I had finished putting away the photos I heard hoofsteps coming from Dashie’s room.

“What happened Pops?”

“Don’t worry about it Dashie, it’s alright. Go back to sleep, you’ve got a big day ahead of you.”

“Okay, G’night Pops. Love you.”

“I love you too, Dashie.”

Dashie truly did have a big day ahead of her, performing with the Wonderbolts is no easy task; you either fly hard and give it your best, or you’re out. I still remember the day that Dashie became a Wonderbolt, we had just been summoned to the Princess‘s (though I like to call her the Queen) quarters to talk about weather matters, apparently the cloud making machines weren’t functioning correctly, and most, if not all, of them were making way too many clouds, I don’t know much more than that, truth be told I didn’t really pay much attention. The entire meeting was boring and used words about weather I couldn‘t even begin to attempt to understand. There were Pegasi ponies everywhere in the meeting room, the Wonderbolts included. There must’ve been at least a quarter of the entire population of Cloudsdale sitting in a large room screaming and arguing with each other about the best possible course of action to take against the problem at hand - or rather at hoof. I still need to get used to this pony vocabulary.

The meeting went on for what felt like hours but eventually it ended when they came to a consensus, splitting into groups of four and taking care of the excess clouds manually. All the able bodied Pegasi were on cloud duty, pretty much if you had a pair of functioning wings and the know-how, which wasn’t much, you were asked to do cloud duty. Dashie’s group was Spitfire of the Wonderbolts, A purple mare by the name of Cloudkicker, and another grey mare whom Dashie calls Ditzy Doo. I think that’s a bit rude just because she’s clumsy she get’s a nickname for it, some of the other ponies even have the gall to call her Derpy, and play it off as if it isn’t an insult. Still, the grey mare didn’t seem to let it bother her so I guess I’m just yelling at air. When Dashie and I left the castle we said our goodbyes, hugged, and she left with her group to clear the sky. I walked home, something I hadn't done in a while, to work on my new wing project, but on the way home I stopped at Twilight’s library for some advice in the matter.

I knocked on the wooden door to the giant tree library, and within seconds I heard hoofsteps inside, or so I thought they were hoofsteps. To my surprise Spike had answered the door, I didn't know how that door opened until I looked down at him. He looked exhausted, his eyes which were glancing up at me had dark purple bags around them, and his scales looked unkempt, Twilight must’ve had him reorganize the entire library again.

“Hey Spike, is Twilight here?”

Spike nodded and turned around, then beckoned for me to follow him. He walked up the stairs to Twilight’s room, after knocking on her bedroom door and Twilight shouting for him to come in, through the door I heard “The humans’ here, Twi. He‘s gotta talk to you or something. I dunno.” Not very eloquent, is he? Well, he’s only a baby dragon but still at least learning my name would be enough, I do have a name after all but most of the ponies just don’t seem to care enough to learn it. I’m constantly being referred to as ‘Rainbow’s Father’, ‘Sir’, or ‘Mister Dash’, and honestly it got a bit annoying after the first hundred times. First it was cute, sort of. Now it just gets on my nerves a little bit. I’m constantly reminding ponies to call my by my first name yet they constantly forget, well, maybe there's a few ponies who remember, but I digress...

I heard the door upstairs open and the hoofsteps echo down the stairs. I knew of Twilight's OCD like behavior from the television show, and her habit of reading for days upon days when something goes wrong, looking for a spell to cure whatever is wrong, but she looked normal to me. It really surprised me, I expected her to be unkempt and on the brink of insanity like in that old episode, Lesson Zero, but she looked perfectly healthy, that‘s the entire reason I decided to visit. Only if she was herself was I going to talk about making a flying apparatus. Her mane had no split ends, she had no awkward smile, her ears weren’t flopping and her voice was calm, not erratic.

“Hello Brian. How are you today?”

I unzipped my sweatshirt and got a bit more comfortable. “I’m good, how about you Twilight?” I was genuinely concerned for her, what with the cloud troubles I‘d thought that she‘d be burying herself in the books, looking for a spell, but she looked entirely normal to me.

“I’m doing fine. What do you need?”

I started to twiddle with my thumbs, I felt as if my request was silly. Wanting to fly. Humans aren’t meant to fly, not least by themselves. The flying wasn’t for me though, it wasn't even for Dashie. It was for us as a whole. To fly with her would be a dream come true. Literally. Dashie and I share dreams sometimes, it’s a side effect of the teleportation that we had both undergone. In these dreams I’m a Pegasus, but sometimes I'm human. Dashie and I fly over forests, valleys, and mountains alike. I’m a full grown Pegasus stallion, my brown coat is flawless and my wings are large and powerful, my jet-black mane and short cropped tail flow gracefully in the wind, and from what Dashie tells me I have got giant blue eyes like Pinkie.

“Twilight, I-I want to know if there’s a way that I can fly with Dashie.”

Dream come true

“To the best of my knowledge, there’s two things that I can do to help you out with that. The first being a spell that will grant you temporary flight, it involves gossamer butterfly wings. It didn’t work out too well in the past when I did it for the first time, I‘d prefer not to do that spell. Although the second spell doesn’t completely fulfill your wish, I can have it where you can walk on clouds for a few days.”

Gossamer butterfly wings seemed way too delicate (and not to mention girly), I wanted something durable and maneuverable. Who else could I talk to about getting wings? Even if they’re temporary... A light bulb went off in my head. Zecora! Of course! She’s got a potion for damn near everything in her hut, and I’m willing to bet that she’s got a brew for flying or at least gliding or something.

“Twilight, what’s the problem with the gossamer wings?” I wanted to fly and I didn’t really care how. But if it wasn’t safe I wanted to know why.

“Well, uh, they’re highly flammable. Last time I did the spell a friend of mine, a friend very close to me, nearly… died. I wouldn’t ever forgive myself if you got hurt because of me.”

Twilight must’ve been talking about Rarity during the ‘Best Young Flyers’ competition. To Zecora’s! I thanked Twilight for the information, zipped up my sweater, and made a mental note to visit Rarity later if Zecora didn't have a potion for flight. I made my way through Ponyville, attracting the occasional gawk as usual, and eventually made my way through town to the path which led into the Everfree forest. The forest is scary, yes, but Zecora’s hut isn‘t too far into the depths of it. After being spooked a couple of times by the supernatural noises and stepping in mud many other times, I eventually made my way to the hut. I knocked on the door and instantaneously heard a loud thud and a long, drawn out groan. Zecora opened the door and greeted me with an almost abusively large smile.

“Hello mister, is there a reason why you have disturbed my meditation and left me in a stir?” She said. I didn’t know what she was doing in the hut, but regardless I still must ask her my question.

“Zecora, I’m terribly sorry about ruining your meditation, but this is rather important. I do hope that you can forgive me," I said. "Do you know of any way that I can fly?” Once again, I felt incredibly foolish in asking such a question. Zecora stared at me, confused as to what to say next, my guess was that she was piecing together a rhyme in her head.

“If you wish to fly, you must not rely, for this gift of flight I can give you, is a breakthrough.” I was trying to decipher the rhyme in my head when she guided me into her hut and over to her cauldron, a green goop was churning inside of it. Zecora walked over to her cupboards and pulled out jars and containers full of Celestia knows what. Zecora began to stir in whatever was in the jars into the brew and began mixing it with a long wooden spoon.

The goop began to stir and bubble around in the cauldron and even changed colors from green to purple, then to blue, then to red, and finally settled at a dark yellowy-orange color. The smells emanating from it made me nauseous, it smelt as if somebody had - you know what, I’ll spare you the details. Needless to say, it smelled horrible. Zecora looked down at the concoction and smiled up in success, finishing with some kind of powder that made the brew spit up a purple cloud of smoke and then she taste tested the brew. She trotted over to a different cupboard on the opposite side of the hut and pulled out a wooden bowl and handed it to me.

“Zecora, what exactly will this potion do?” I didn’t want my skin to turn purple and grow green polka dots but, have a pair of wings after all. Zecora didn’t answer, instead she grabbed the bowl out of my hand in her mouth, dunked it into the cauldron and then handed it back to me. The potion didn’t smell as bad now, kind of like play dough, but with a kind of citrus undertone. “Zecora. What will this do?“ I repeated.

“If flight is what you desire, please take off your attire.” She pointed to my chest.

“Why would I-” I stopped mid-sentence, if I have a sweater on my wings won’t have anywhere to go when they unfold and will rip through my sweater, probably ruining it. After taking off my sweater I looked down to her and raised an eyebrow, she then looked up to me and nodded. I held the bowl with both of my hands, tilted it upwards, and chugged down. I couldn’t taste it really, but it burned as if I'd taken a shot of vodka. Then I felt a pain like nothing before. It felt like my scapulae were tearing through my skin. I fell to my knees struggling to stay conscious, Zecora frowned down at me and rhymed something that was supposed to soothe me. Trickles of blood leaked from my back and I shook and gritted my teeth in pain. My body felt light as I let out a loud scream and fell unconscious in the middle of the hut.

-----

“Dad? Are you home? You left the door unlocked…”

I opened the door to Dad’s home and began looking for him, I had great news. I found a note on the fridge that said “Meet me at Twilight’s, I’ve got a surprise for you. I know you’ll like it, Love Dad.” I put the paper down, grabbed a snack from the refrigerator, and raced out the front door. When I arrived at the library I knocked on the door. Twilight answered by poking her head out the barely open crack, it was open just enough for her eyes to look out.

“Hello Rainbow. Any particular reason why you’re here?”

“Dad said that he was here, and that he had a surprise for me. Is he here?”

Twilight opened the door a bit more, just enough to stick her head out. She wore a weird look on her face, her eyes were shifting around a lot, and she had a very small, awkward grin look on her muzzle.

“Are you okay, Twi?”

“Me? I’m fine, never better. Hey, would you look at the time. I’ve got to close the library, see you tomorrow Rainbow.”

Twilight was really scaring me now, her mane was all messed up and she kept trying to rush me away from the library. Something had to be wrong.

“Twilight, it‘s three o‘clock. What‘s up with you?”

“Nothing! Nothing at all!”

She began trying to push me out of the door sill but I wouldn’t budge. I was really beginning to get frustrated with Twi now, why wouldn’t just open the door? What could possibly be so bad inside that I couldn’t see it! I took a deep breath and looked Twilight directly in the eyes.

“Twilight. Open the door.”

She shook her head violently, then replied. “NO! Come back later!” I was beginning to lose my temper, honestly, what was wrong with her? I put my forehooves on the door and began pushing.

“Twilight. Open. The. Door!” I repeated myself, but she was a step ahead of me and slammed the door shut with her magic just as I began pushing. I said one last time. “Twilight, Open the bucking door now, or I swear I'll break it down.“ Silence. “Last chance Twilight!” Silence again. I turned around and balanced on my front fetlocks then bucked the door, I heard a slight crack the first time. I kept doing it until I felt the door give and fly off the hinges, which were still under the influence of Twilight‘s magic. I turned back around and looking into the library but not before I looked down and felt something warm make it’s way down my hind leg to my hoof. It was blood. My blood.

I pushed my way through Twilight and glided into the main chamber of the library. Twilight gave up her struggle to stop me soon as she saw that I noticed my father. He was unconscious in the middle of the library but clearly still breathing, laying motionless on his back on the cold hardwood floor. He was propped up on some pillows, Spike was wrapping a gauze bandage around his head, and Dad also had a sling on his left arm.

“What happened?”

Injury

I awoke with blurry vision, a terrible headache, and I was freezing cold laying on the floor in the middle of Zecora’s hut. The first thing that I noticed once my vision cleared up was that I’d been wrapped in a blanket. I looked around and began to search for Zecora, I couldn‘t find her in the small, one roomed hut. I rolled over onto my back, something was making it a lot tougher to do, but I eventually got myself repositioned. I pushed out from under the blanket and threw it off of me. I felt something weighing me down when I stood up. I stretched my back, or at least tried to.

When I reached my hands backwards to push against my lower back, I felt something blocking my arms. I turned my head to my left and out of the corner of my eye I saw large wings protruding from my back. WINGS! Giant grey feathered wings! It was all coming back to me, as it were. I remembered the potion, the plan, and the pain. Oh Celestia, the pain. It was unbearable! It felt as if somebody had taken a molten hot scalpel and driven it into to skin above my shoulder blade and made a five inch long incision along the bone, then turned it around some inside of me, and finally moved my scapulae to the outside of my body. However, When I woke up my scapulae were inside of my back, still exactly where they should be.

“Zecora! It worked!”

No Response.

“Zecora? Hello?”

I heard hoofsteps coming from the direction of the door. When the door inched open it revealed an over encumbered Zebra. She was struggling to carry her stuffed saddlebags, a few boxes that were resting on her back, she was balancing three or so boxes on her head, and kicking one medium sized one on the ground in front of her. I walked over to her and picked up the ones off of her head and the one she was kicking. I was met with a warm smile.

“Thanks you dude, for assisting me in carrying the ingredients that I have accrued. I see that the brew, has been a success for you?”

I nodded the best I could behind the massive tower of boxes in between my arms. I didn’t know how to fold up my newly formed wings, so I accidentally I ended up knocked over many of Zecora’s ‘souvenirs‘, as she calls them, that adorned the walls. I put the boxes down on the counter on the far side of the hut, opposite to the door.

“Zecora, how long will I have these wings for?”

She trotted over to a giant bookshelf, stood on her hind legs, and pulled out an enormous purple book down from the top shelf in her mouth. She threw the book down onto a wooden table which made an audible thud on contact, and began reading off the page.

“Potion of the Pegasi, allows anypony the ability to fly, and the duration is not clearly specified. Possibly it is a few years, maybe just a single month, after that time the wings on your back will molt slowly and the bone will weaken until it must to be surgically, or magically - Oh, horseapples…” She sunk her head down and frowned, but I didn’t know why at first. Her head sunk down further in depression and her ears flopped down. I felt bad, so I walked over to her and knelt down next to her. She had just realized that nothing rhymes with month!

“Zecora, are you okay?” She shook her head. “What’s wrong?” Of course I’d figured it out, I just wanted to hear her speak. I saw her open her mouth as if to talk, but she just sighed.

She slowly walked over to the bookshelf once again and struggled to pull out an volume with a dark blue cover. As she pulled it out of the packed bookcase I saw her struggle heavily with it, it was even bigger than the last book. I tried to offer assistance but she shrugged me off as I went to grab the book from her. She dropped it once it slid out of the shelf, forcing out an enormous cloud of dust. When the dust cleared and we stopped choking I saw that the cover was written in some sort of language I couldn’t understand, even the characters were different!

She flipped through to the back of the book and took a quick look at what I guessed was the index. She then flipped through a few hundred pages with her hooves and landed on the page she was looking for. She picked up the book in her mouth and handed it to me. The page had a picture of an earth pony walking with their head slumped down. The next picture to the right of it had the same pony flying in the air with a pair of newly acquired wings that were outlined with a dotted line. The pony was grinning ear to ear, above their back was velocity marks that indicated forward motion. Flying.

“Zecora, what am I supposed to be looking for?”

Zecora motioned to me with her arms in a flapping motion. She wanted me to try to fly. I said goodbye but she decided to follow me out of her hut. My wings were still at full span and getting out of the door normally was impossible, so I decided to go out sideways. I stepped outside into the smog and began trying to flap my wings. I could feel the muscles but I couldn’t move them.

-----

“Rainbow Dash, please do not act Rash. This is my fault you see, it’s all because of me.” I heard the voice call out from behind a mountain of books.

“I-I-I…” I couldn’t even put together a sentence, I noticed the shadowy figure emerging from behind the mountain as Zecora, nopony else rhymes like that. Dad was stirring in his sleep, I saw something on his back move under the blankets when he rolled over.

“Zecora, what’d you do?” She told me the story of how Dad arrived at her hut, how he asked her if there’s a way he could fly, how he passed out, how he assisted her with the boxes, everything I’d come to knew Dad would do but then she told me why he was unconscious. He’d tried to fly, what a featherbrain! There’s a reason why Pegasus pony fillies and colts don’t fly. It’s because they don’t know how!

From what Zecora told me I can gather that he’d tried to fly and, for the most part, succeeded. Somewhat. But, somewhere in the middle of Ponyville he’d lost control while trying to descend and plummeted down to the ground. Turns out he landed near the library and was in bad shape. Twilight did an x-ray spell with her magic, and turns out that he had broken his left arm in three places, gotten a bad concussion and even snapped his right wing’s ulna and dislocated his right shoulder entirely.

Twilight interjected amidst Zecora’s diagnosis to tell me that they’d sent news of Dad’s accident to Nurse Redheart and that they were waiting for the hospital to send a doctor who could fix Dad. As soon as Twilight finished an ear piercing screech echoed through the library, it came from where the front door is, or rather where it was. Twilight and I raced to the door, Zecora was busy meditating in the middle of the floor. Once we arrived at the door we saw an unconscious Earth Pony.

She had a light blue coat, mint green mane that was tied in a bun, and a red cross for a cutie mark. Yeah, no doubt she was the nurse, I thought. “Nurse!” I called out. “She must’ve fainted from the small pool of blood on the ground in front of the door. C‘mon Twi, help me wake her up.” Twilight shook Nurse Tenderheart awake with me, eventually she came to from her nap. She opened her eyes and her face turned crimson in a blush. She stood up and silently walked into the library after regaining her composure.

The Nurse trotted over to Dad and sat down, she began doing some tests; Normal things like taking temperature with a thermometer, checking reflexes, as well as feeling around his limbs. She stood up and looked at Twilight, Zecora and I.

“He’s, uhm, in really bad shape.”

Treatment

No, really I thought. “Let him get some bed rest and when he wakes up try to get him to the hospital. He’s in stable condition as is right now, I'd try to help more but I can’t do anything for him with this menial travel equipment.” She shook her saddlebags. The Nurse left the library shortly after doing a few more things to Dad, and suggesting to fix his shoulder before we get him to the hospital. Pops rolled around in his sleep quite a lot, I guess sleeping with wings you’ve never had before is uncomfortable. Twilight had decided to take a closer look at Dad’s injuries, she did something with her magic and then I heard a sickeningly loud and grotesque pop coming from his back. She must’ve taken the Nurse’s advice and tried to relocate his shoulder blade, because when I heard that crack, Dad woke right up and screamed in agony.

-----

I awoke from the blackness with an indescribable amount of pain coming from my back, for the second time today, yet it wasn’t nearly as bad as the first. I shot upright and slammed my head into Twilight’s, which left a big bruise on my forehead from her horn, thus intensifying my already throbbing headache. Thank Celestia Unicorn horns are blunt and not sharp, or that would’ve ended a lot worse, but regardless it still hurt a lot. She fell backwards on her haunches and blushed, I guess I startled her. She was rubbing her head and mumbling under her breath. I felt the pain in my back intensify once more but it soon faded as I moved my arm around. She must have done something with her magic to fix my arm; to this day I still don’t understand magic, and I probably never will. Dashie was standing at the entrance of the library talking to somepony that I couldn't see, she said thanks to them and waved them off. She walked back into the library with a bandage around her hind leg. ‘What did she do now?’ I thought. Dashie tends to get hurt a lot when doing her stunts and showing off but she’s always denied bandages and special treatment from anypony, even me. I've known Dashie long enough to know that she much prefers to patch herself up.

“’Sup, Pops. You okay?” she asked me. I really wanted to reply sarcastically but something inside of me decided against it.

“No.” A simple enough of a reply would suffice I thought. Twilight stood back up and helped me to my feet from the cocoon of a makeshift bed that I‘d been kept under. Twilight and Dashie told me all about what happened while I was knocked out. Dashie breaking Twilight’s door, the incompetent Nurse, and Twilight relocating my shoulder. I thanked Zecora over and over. Twilight said goodbye to Spike, and for him to watch the library while she was gone. He nodded and continued reorganizing the library as per Twilight's instructions. Zecora went home to her hut in the forest, and we left on a trek to the hospital. With the assistance of both Dashie and Twi, I got to the hospital in one piece.

Twilight opened the blue curtain with the red cross on it with her telekinesis, then guided me into the waiting room section of the medical tent. There were sick foals, caring parents, ponies laden with gauze bandages and broken bones. Coughing and the occasional sigh or groan was the only ambient noise in the room. Twilight walked up to the secretary and informed her of my apparently urgent situation. I felt fine, and sure, I could feel pain and everything but it was down to a bearable level. As I walked into the hospital I felt it dissipate as a sort of tingling replaced the pain where my injuries were. I asked Twilight about it, apparently hospitals have some sort of magical aura that cleanses air and releases it with a mild pain killer spell. How many times have I emphasized magic? I love this world. Modern Earth medicine doesn’t have anything on magic!

We were guided by one of the many nurses to talk with Miss Redheart. She was busy doing something else in a different room and talking to other injured ponies, so Twilight, Dashie and I were brought into a smaller room that had only a few beds with some hurt ponies on them, and four or so wooden chairs. I took a seat on one of the unoccupied beds as Twilight magicked two chairs to the side of the bed that I sat on while waiting for Nurse Redheart. Dashie jumped up onto the bed behind me and inspected my back while humming. She began to dig the corner of her hooves into my back, my wings shot out through the holes in the fabric of my sweater that Twilight had made with her magic.

She took my primary feathers in her muzzle and began preening my feathers for me, it felt really good. Sort of like a back massage but better. It’s hard to explain what its like having different appendages considering no human has ever had wings before, but bear with me. Twilight had brought a book with her, I couldn’t make out the title over the purple magic that shrouded it, but she seemed enthralled in it. After a few minutes, another nurse, not Nurse Redheart, came into the room and looked around for a second, saw me, and trotted over to us. She had a cylinder of clean gauze in her mouth. She asked me in a garbled voice to hold still and for Dashie to stop preening my wings for a minute. Once Dashie hopped down the nurse began wrapping the gauze around my right wing where the bone that I’d broken was, then adjusted the sling on my left arm. She grabbed a second tube of gauze from the far side of the room, removed the spent gauze that was around my head, and re-wrapped my forehead with the fresh bandages.

Soon she left and Dashie resumed preening my wings, Twilight was still reading her book, and I was falling asleep. Finally after about an hour and a half, Nurse Redheart arrived with a unicorn stallion. He was a rather generic looking doctor with thin wire frame glasses resting against his nose, he was sporting a white lab coat, and had a black stethoscope wrapped around his neck. “Mister Brian Dash, I presume?” he said in an official sounding voice. I nodded, and shook his extended hoof. Nurse Redheart handed me the clipboard in her mouth, I had to fill it out a sheet of basic hospital procedure paperwork, which I did as quickly as I could with my one functioning arm. Once I was done I handed the clipboard back to Nurse Redheart and she walked back into the larger waiting room part of the tent with the clipboard clenched between her teeth.

The doctor instructed me to stand up and not to move, his horn began to glow blue, then a sliver of cyan light scanned my body head to toe three times up and down. He then looked at a wall, blinked a few times and projected the x-ray onto the cloth wall as a spark emanated from his horn, similar to the that Dashie told me Twilight did. He motioned to the image with his forehoof, on the image where my skull is and began talking about the concussion. He mentioned that I was lucky considering I had no brain damage or amnesia. He tapped my right wing in the image and highlighted the bone that I’d broken in a red LED like glow, sort of like on the board game 'Operation' when you'd touch the metal part with the tweezers and the big guy's nose would buzz and light up. He then zoomed the image in and focused on my arm. There was one large and distinct crack about half way down the ulna, and two smaller ones on either side of the radius. He rotated the image around and showed me the back side of the image. He explained how my wings had grown out from my scapulae and that my skeletal structure had actually been changed to allow a second, albeit smaller, pair of shoulder blades to form where my wings connected into a ball and socket type joint under my normal scapulae.

My wings were made out of solid bone in the x-ray. The doctor explained how the potion that I’d ingested increased my calcium intake by an unheard of rate and that my body used the 'Celestial', as he put it, amount to form the wings proportionate to my size. Needless to say, I looked like a fallen angel. The irony of the matter made me start to giggle, then it turned into full blown, hysterical laughter. The doctor looked at me as though I was insane at first with a tilted head and shifty eyes, but he soon began to laugh with me. Then before I knew it Twilight and Dashie were cracking up, then the entire medical tent, including staff, patients, everypony, was in an uproar of laughter! You know what they say about laughter, right? It’s infectious.

Party

Once the laughter subsided and everypony, excluding the doctor who stumbled away chuckling, caught their breath, Dashie once again resumed preening, and Twilight picked up the book she dropped when she began giggling and consequently lost control of her magic, from her frantic shuffling through the book apparently she also lost the page she was on as well. We waited another half hour in the small room before I was discharged from the hospital by the same blue and green nurse that had come to Twilight’s home while I was unconscious. I left with a large orange bottle full of purple pills in my hand, the label said my name, under that it said the medicine‘s name, which I couldn‘t pronounce, and the dosage ‘50 MG’, under that it said ‘Take 1 tablet 2 times a day every 12 hours by mouth for 1 week.’ I turned around the canister in my hand and continued reading.

‘May cause drowsiness. Alcohol intensifies the effect. Use care using machines.’ There was a sentence under that restating that it may cause drowsiness, under that it mentioned that if you’re pregnant or trying to becoming so to talk with your doctor, yada yada yada, blah blah blah, I’m a man I can’t even get pregnant! Or can I? Magic… yeah, maybe I can, I don’t know. Even further under that said the date it was filled and when to discard it by. The last thing on it was a description of the pill. ‘This is a PURPLE, OVAL-shaped TABLET imprinted with BWPR (Broken Wing Pain Reliever?) on the front and 198 on the back. I asked one of the nurses for a glass of water, she came back a few seconds later carrying a plastic cup on her back. I thanked her and popped one of the pills in my mouth, swallowed it and pocketed the bottle. I left the hospital after taking the medication, but not before thanking that Doctor and Nurse Redheart one last time for their hospitality.

On our walk home, Dashie asked how I wanted her to meet me at Twilight’s if I was unconscious. My plan was to surprise her with a party for us if I could fly, if not we were just going to have a party anyways, something Pinkie had been asking me to let her do for a while. “…but, on my flight to Sugarcube corner to talk with Pinkie about last second preparations and final touches, I screwed up my just-barely-working flight pattern and ended up falling out of the sky and landing near Twilight‘s library. Twilight must’ve heard the sound of my head hitting the earth and brought me inside to make sure that I was still alive.” Twilight nodded. It was at this point in our walk that we reached Twilight’s library, Pinkie Pie was screaming into the library from the place where the wooden door once was. Her hair was deflated and lost some of it’s bright pink hue.

Spike came outside from the library and began talking with Pinkie, amidst their conversation Spike pointed behind Pinkie towards Dashie, Twilight and myself. Pinkie’s hair instantly gained back it’s curls and color. She then skipped over and hugged the life out of us all.

“Pinkie…You’re…Choking…ME!” Dashie managed to squeak out. I tried to talk but the only thing that came out was an exhale.

Pinkie let go of us a few seconds after Dashie said that, Twilight and myself fell to the ground first, and Dashie, who tried to fly in place but couldn’t from the immense pressure of Pinkie‘s ursa hug, last. We all caught our breath, and saw the pink pony skipping in circles around us. Pinkie stopped hopping when she noticed that I was all bandaged up, she tilted her head and opened her mouth then took a deep breath. I cut her off before she could even begin. “Long story, let me tell you on the walk to Sugarcube Corner.” Spike looked at Twilight intently and she winked, Spike ran out of the library and jumped onto her back.

I told Pinkie everything that I knew on the walk to Sugarcube Corner, and she listened without interrupting me even once. She’s a really good listener, despite her garrulousness. I told her about the plan to acquire wings, the visit to both Twilight and Zecora, the pain of growing wings, the pain of falling a few hundred feet and landing on my head, the pain of getting your shoulder relocated by magic, the tediousness of sitting in a hospital for two hours, the dullness of filling out paperwork, the awkward laughter that ensued before we left the hospital, she giggled at the mention of laughter. I told her of the walk back to the library. I also mentioned the medicine and flashed the orange bottle, Pinkie grimaced after she read the name of it.

“These are really bad, well good, sort of, in weird way! They can do craaaaaazy things! Like this one time at a party, I -” Twilight cut her off with a hoof into the mouth.

“Okay then, Pinkie. Hey look, we’re here!” Pinkie skipped into the bakery, we all followed her into building and got comfortable with some punch and snacks, I noticed that Rarity nor Fluttershy were inside the bakery waiting for us when we arrived, so I decided to ask where they were.

“Rarity is filling an order from Fancypants for a super fabulous suit" Pinkie posed as if she was a mannequin. "...and Fluttershy is taking care of bushels of brand-new bouncing baby bunnies." She hopped around in small circles on her hind legs. "Rarity might come later though if she gets done soon, and Fluttershy might also if the bunnies aren‘t being too difficult.”

"How about Applejack? Will she be here later?" Pinkie shook her head and frowned.

"She's probably tired from a hard day's work on the farm bucking apple trees, but maybe she'll come later. I dunno." Spike jumped off of Twilight and made himself comfortable on one of the smaller beanbag chairs and rolled up into a ball, he fell asleep without a word. I saw that Dashie was getting comfortable on a pink beanbag chair, I took a seat next to her on a slightly larger green one and asked her about what happened during her cloud duties, her face lit up like the day she got her cutie mark.

She flew up out of the beanbag at break neck speed and smashed her head into the ceiling. I tried to make sure that she was okay but she shook it off, rubbed her head, and began telling me about what happened.

Heroine

So there I was, alone and scared. I stood against all odds and zoomed down through the clouds; I knew it would be dangerous, but I didn’t let that stop me. Danger is my middle name! Rainbow Danger Dash! You know, thinking back on it, I acted pretty awesome. All I could hear was her screams echoing in my head, the wind flowing through my mane, the speed, the adrenaline, the fear and freedom was nothing like I’d ever felt before, it was both exhilarating and terrifying. I flew down, faster and faster, the fear in her eyes from the lightning of a dark Cumulonimbus, her frantic scrambling to try to fly. Without me she would be dead. I was no more then fifteen hooves away, I could feel the sheer terror radiating off of her.

I began to close the gap between us when I noticed the mach cone surrounding me. I couldn’t stop now or I’d be pushed out of the cone and forced in the opposite direction of her. The ground was approaching faster and faster, getting larger and larger. I could just begin to make out the details of the trees. The cone around me began to get smaller, I was getting closer and closer to a sonic Rainboom. I couldn’t stop now. I made one final push and suddenly boom! I’d done it. I reached out to grab her and held her in my arms as we looped back up into the sky. I flew up, the rainbow trail still following me, as I slowed down to a stop. I dropped her off at a cloud, I collapsed onto it. We both laid there for a few moments to catch out breath; her from screaming, me from overexertion.

She rolled over and planted a kiss on my cheek. “Hey. Thanks kid, you’re pretty cool.” she said. I will never wash this cheek again.

-----

Dashie wouldn’t stop caressing her cheek, she didn’t care how awkward it looked. Shortly after Dashie’s story concluded there was a knocking on the door; Pinkie had begun to chat up a less than interested Twilight, and Dashie had began to sink back into her beanbag chair, while still caressing her cheek, so I decided to answer the door. There in front of me was Rarity, Fluttershy, and a half-asleep Applejack. Behind them, in the sky illuminated by the moon’s light was the shadow of a Pegasus pony rolling around, doing flips and the likes. I turned around to make sure that Dashie was still in her chair. She was. I invited Rarity, Fluttershy and Applejack inside. They had all gotten comfortable as I excused myself outside to go watch the mysterious mare in the sky. I closed the door behind me as I walked over to one of the tables that was outside in front of the bakery, and pulled out one of the chairs and began to watch the mare.

She was a really good flyer, I did think that she was Dashie after all so she must be good. I could make out the color of her coat in the moonlight. Bright yellow. Like the center of a fire. "Spitfire…" I thought. "Dashie’s idol." I watched her for a few more minutes, I soon noticed the bandages on her wings. They didn‘t effect her in the slightest. "That must’ve been the mare that Dashie saved." The door behind me opened with a crack, I heard light hoofsteps on the hard soil behind me. I took my eyes off of the flying pony and glanced to my right to see Dashie smiling up at the sky.

“She sure is something, huh?”

I nodded my head as a response, and looked back up into the night sky. The yellow Pegasus was still doing tricks under the moonlight, her wings elegantly cutting through the air. It was an amazing show. She was flawless in the way that she flew, much like Dashie. Eventually she stopped her display and slowly descended under the moonlight, lowering herself to the ground in a spiral. Dashie and I held each other in an embrace for a few moments afterwards, partially because we were getting cold, partially because we just wanted to. It was getting rather late at that point in the night, Dashie and I were both getting tired.

We both walked back into the bakery and saw a sky blue stallion talking with Pinkie. There was a crash on the ground. I looked to my left and saw that Dashie had fainted. That got his attention. He stared at me and tilted his head a bit to the left as he raised his right brow. I waved, gave a small grin, and let out a brief chuckle, my hand was close to my neck as I moved my wrist left to right. A smirk formed across his visage as he trotted over to me, Pinkie was still hopping close behind him, and around him, talking up a storm about nonsense, as she always does. When she took a breath and broke off from her train of speech, a light blue hoof ended up in her mouth.

“I would offer my hoof at a shake but I’m a bit tied up, as you can see.” he said, struggling to keep Pinkie from talking.

“You’re Soarin’, one of the Wonderbolts, aren’t you?” He nodded as he struggled to push his hoof further into Pinkie's mouth.

“Guess my reputation precedes me. Most ponies don’t know what I look like without the suit on.” He said with a cocky grin.

“So, why are you here?” I asked. He let go of Pinkie just as she had begun to lick his hoof in an effort to make him stop. He shook off his hoof of drool and continued talking.

“I’m here to give Rainbow Dash this, as a sign of our thanks.” He mouthed open the buckle on his dark blue saddlebags that rested across his back, and pulled out a blue and yellow jumpsuit in between his teeth. It was neatly folded in a square, the belt that kept it together had a lightning bolt as a buckle.

I nearly fainted myself. Dashie. My not-so-little-anymore Dashie (Who am I kidding, she‘ll always be my little Dashie). A Wonderbolt. I’ve never been one to get emotional but I couldn’t help but hug him, he didn’t seem to mind too much. Pinkie had tears forming in the corners of her eyes, soon she released a waterfall of tears. She grabbed a hoofkerchief out of thin air and held it in between her fetlocks. I could feel tears forming in my eyes too, but I wouldn’t let them out. Not yet. I let go of Soarin’ and shook his hoof. There was a groan behind me and a quiet ‘Huh…?’. Then there was a string of ‘ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh’s' followed by a long and drawn out high pitched squeal. I turned around and saw Dashie trying to stand up. She was shaking. I was too.

Dashie stumbled over to Soarin’ and myself and looked into his eyes, no, his soul. The next thing that happened took less than a second. In that time she had managed to: one, knock Soarin‘, and the suit in his mouth, down onto the floor. Two, cause him to blush a shade of red that the light spectrum normally wouldn’t allow. And three, make my heart explode. Once again.

“Welcome to the team, rookie.” he said, through muffled gasps.

A tear trickled out of my eye, and my head got light. I took a seat in one of the beanbags, I rubbed my forehead and rested my head against the soft cloth.

“N-…-kie…p-t…-at…-cket…d-n…” I heard garbled speech as I woke up, then there was a loud splash. I felt frigid water splash against my legs and chest. I opened my eyes and sat up, my head collided with something solid. Something blunt. A horn. Again. I shut my eyes in pain and pushed my hands against my forehead.

“Darling, you really must be more careful.” I heard a soft and refined voice say. I felt a hoof lightly rest against my shoulder. I looked out through the cracks in my hands and glanced up to see Rarity, her horn glowing in a light azure color. A few feet behind her was Pinkie, she had a metal bucket in between her hooves. On the other side of the bucket was a pair of cyan hooves. Dashie let go of the bucket as she saw me look at her, Pinkie tried to hide it behind her. The off-blue color covered my forehead in a blob-like glow. All the pain in my head, even the headache that I’d had the entire day, slowly disappeared under the tingling sensation that took it‘s place.

“Where did you-” She answered before I could finish my sentence.

“Sweetie Belle tends to get hurt. A lot." She let out a sigh. "Especially during her adventures with her friends. I eventually got fed up with her whining and decided to learn some medical magic.” I shook my head around in circles a few times to make the tingling go away before I pushed my palms against the cloth and bent my knees to try and stand up. My head instantly got light, there was yet another thud as I fell back into the chair, onto my ass, like a moron.

“Here, let me help you.” I heard a different voice say. One I'd rarely ever heard. There were bright yellow hooves under each of my armpits. Then there was the sound of flapping wings and a few strained grunts. I looked down and saw that I was a few inches off the ground, I touched the floor softly and I regained my balance as I stood upright. I turned around to see Dashie’s number one idol, Soarin’ being number two, right behind me standing upright on her hind legs. Spitfire.

“'Sup, you’re Dash’s uh…dad, right?”

“Yeah, I am. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

We shook hands and hooves. I peeked over her shoulder at the clock on the wall behind her, it was a few minutes past midnight. We talked for a few more minutes before she trotted back over to Dashie who was still slightly shaking while talking to Soarin', still not letting go of his hoof. I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out the orange bottle, uncapped it, and popped another pill into my mouth and swallowed. Dashie had now been struggling to put on the Wonderbolt uniform that Soarin’ had given her, both Spitfire and Soarin’ had to help her get into it. I’ve never seen her happier. With a smile on my face and my heart dancing in my chest, I took a seat in the beanbag chair and let myself sink down into it. I almost instantly dozed off into sleep. The label on the medicine bottle wasn't kidding when it said 'may cause drowsiness.'