Dash spent most of her first day of Hearth’s Warming vacation asleep in her old room, surrounded by all her old trophies and medals, from her first Honorable Mention at Junior Speedsters, to the most recent medals for valor, pinned to the dress uniform that hung crisply from the hanger over the door.
She was too tired, and in too much pain to complain. So she took her assigned dose of painkillers, and dozed.
She didn’t hardly talk to her parents.
The RFF had medical clinics all over Cloudsdale to care for the thousands of pegasi serviceponies who lived there. Dash made the short walk to the closest one at Cirrustop Square for her physical therapy appointments, per her doctor’s orders, three days each week.
The first day, Dash winced as her wing braces were removed.
She felt her face flush with burning humiliation as the therapist had to help her open her own wings.
She sucked in air as the therapist had her slowly flap her wings up and down, up and down, not even fast enough for lift, just lying prone on a padded table.
She listened to her breath as the therapist preened her battered feathers with a fine tooth comb and wingbalm. And she yelped when the mare plucked unsalvageable feathers out.
She felt sad and tired as she walked home afterwards, wings re-braced.
Her mother had a potato and pasta sourdough sandwich waiting for her.
One thing went right today, at least.
She still didn’t talk to her parents much. But she was grateful nonetheless.
On the third day of her break, Dash came home from therapy (she had risen with a single flap, an inch above the table) to find a courier had left a gigantic box for her. And her parents, mercifully, had not opened it.
Inside, Dash found a note from Spitfire on Wonderbolts letterhead.
Crash-
Professional Development Reading for your next promotion cycle. This is all the stuff an O-4 has to know to be eligible for Command & Staff College. If we can’t flap our wings, we can pump our heads so full of hot air we’ll float up.
Say hi to your folks for me. You’re lucky to have them, zero chill about their little filly and all.
“S”F
Dash chuckled at the note. Spitfire loved using every Bolt’s handle whenever the opportunity arose… but she absolutely balked at saying or writing out her own. Every. Single. Time. Even the initials involved strategically placed quotation marks.
Dash had only heard it from the horse’s mouth once, herself, the day she got her own handle. And after that, never again.
But she, and everyone else in the squadron, knew the story, and knew to avoid eating big dishes of Mexipon food.
Because Wonderbolts never knew when the next mission would be called.
She still didn’t talk to her parents much.
On the eighth night, Dash had a nightmare. She was back over Appleoosa, fighting the storm, cutting it, tearing it apart. But this time it did not die. It had a mind of its own. It thought. It hated.
The living storm took her and Spitfire and Soarin and Fleetfoot, wrapping them in icy wind. Dash felt her wings being pulled off of her. Then the storm cast them down to the ground in a mighty draft.
Just before impact, she bolted upright, her heart racing and gasping for breath.
I could have died.
Spitfire. Soarin. Fleetfoot. All of us.
The nightmare refused to leave her mind that night, and she slept no more.
The following day, the kind mare at physical therapy noted that Dash seemed dead on her hooves. Dash declined her offer for a few night’s worth of sleeping pills.
She didn’t talk to her parents much.
And she certainly did not say anything about the nightmare to them.
On the eleventh day, Dash was going stir crazy. So she helped her mother decorate the house for Hearth’s Warming. Well, at least all the stuff that was down low enough. And roughly half the ornaments on the tree.
Elapsed time to set out every Hearth’s Warming decoration, trinket, and tchotchke Windy Whistles had ever collected: two hours, five minutes, twelve seconds.
Approximately ten minutes of that, she spent talking with her mother. Not that her mother didn’t try. And Dash still appreciated that about her.
On the fifteenth day, Dash’s physical therapist noted that Dash seemed unusually tense.
While she practiced a simple hover, Dash just kept talking and talking to the extraordinarily patient mare, saying whatever came to her mind to distract herself from the ache of her recovering flight muscles. “I’m addicted to stress. That’s the only way I get things done. If I’m not under pressure, I sleep too long, I hang around like some kind of flightless bum, and… you know, that makes me all nervous inside. Like life is out to get me. But I know life’s not out to get me. But you know, it’s not that bad. It could be worse. It’s ‘aaight.”
She spent thirty minutes talking to her parents, mostly about the upcoming Wonderbolts Derby season, and most of that helping her mother look for a better spot for her season tickets.
The eighteenth day was Hearth’s Warming Eve.
She went to a dinner at the house of her parents’ next door neighbors. Her mother had insisted that Dash put on her nice uniform and medals. It would make her feel better. Give her a chance to talk to people.
Dash agreed.
It was a mistake. As soon as the evening started, everyone wanted to talk to her. About what she did in the RFF. Then about the Wonderbolts. Then about flight training. Then about her injuries. Then about Wonderbolt history. Then about what the RFF was looking for in new recruits. Then about her funniest stories from recruit training. Then about her thoughts on Princess Twilight’s foreign policy. She finally balked at one guest who was convinced that the War of the Three Villains had been some kind of an inside job.
She barely had time to eat anything, she was talking so much.
Dash did not talk to her parents for most of the night, though she desperately wanted to. She finally asked her mother if it would be OK if she left early, because she was feeling tired and her wings were hurting. Her mother, concerned, said it was just fine, and gave her a hug.
Dash sat alone, in bed, sleepless.
My body is breaking down.
My time as a Wonderbolt is ending.
This is all I’ve ever wanted to do.
This is all I know how to do.
What next?
What if this is it for me?
She wanted to talk to someone, anyone. But it was Hearth’s Warming Eve, and she knew everybeing was asleep.
Maybe not one pony. But she’s retired.