Wingless

What is a pegasus without wings? An Earth Pony without the magic to plant the crops? A Unicorn without magic? They are nothing. Without their abilities, they don't have their pride. They don't have a sense of meaning. Without who they are, without what they were made to be, they feel that they have no purpose in this world. Without who and what they are, they feel like they mean nothing. A pegasus who's wings are the world, wings that make her amazing, wings that make her the best. – Spitfire.

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Rainbow Dash was fast asleep in her bed, but something was off. The bed didn't feel like a cloud, it was much harder and it felt like it was made of springs. It felt like it was an Earth Ponies bed. Her wings started to ache, so she rolled over onto her stomach and stretched her wings to try and rid of the ache that was in her wings. She tried to stretch them, but nothing happened. She closed her eyes tighter, concentrating harder to attempt to move her wings into an outstretched position. Still, the same feeling ensued. A feeling of empty, like they were gone. She thought to herself that there is no way that they could be gone. What she last remembers was... well, she didn't remember anything at all. Just this feeling that her wings weren't there. She started to get curious to about why this feeling didn't go away.

She opened her eyes, and the room she was in wasn't her own room. It was too dark, and it reeked of anesthesia, and the smell of sickness. The walls were a frigid white, with a solid salmon colored stripe in the middle of the wall. Sitting next to her bed was a machine that kept a constant rhythm in tune with her heartbeat. She started to panic inside her mind. There was no way for her to get her, or at least anything could remember. She had no memories of anything besides talking with Twilight about how to get the best arodynamicsizing... whatever it was, it was something that had to do with her going faster, to get her a better rush for speed.

She looked again at the heart monitor, which was now beeping at a faster pace as her heart rate had gone up when she realized that she was in the hospital. Hanging from a steel pipe at the side of her bed was a bag filled with a clear liquid of some kind. It was connected to a small drip tube that let a constant drip of the mystery medicine, assuming that's what it was. Her heart started to beat faster as she lifted her hooves to check them. Her hooves were fine, but the leg that was attached to the hoof was covered in bandages, consuming her leg up until her shoulder in a white wrap. She started to panic, maybe the feeling that her wings weren't really there... was true. Maybe... she had lost everything that made her... the greatest flier in Equestria.

She turned her head over her shoulder, hoping to see her blue wings resting at her side, hopefully just tied to her side. She had closed her eyes, not wanting to know if they were really there or not. She slowly lifted her eyelids, and in place of where her beautiful cyan wings once were, there were just stubs. Small, blue stubs wrapped in a white bandage. She looked at them with a deep fear resonating inside her body, making her shake. Her eyes began to water, and her mouth slowly drooped open as she realized that she had no wings. She had lost herself, she had lost what made her unique.

"MY WINGS!!! WHERE ARE MY WINGS?!?!" Rainbow screamed at the top of her lungs, hopping out if the hospital bed, yanking out her IV's, the blood temporarily flowing from where she had removed it, and the heart monitor stuck on a deadly beep when she removed the leads that stuck to her chest. She thrashed in the hospital room, screaming and kicking everything she could, breaking everything.

The doctor ran into the room, three nurses following close behind to help subdue the exasperated cyan mare. "Rainbow Dash! You need to calm down at once! Your not going to heal anyti –" The doctor was cut short as Rainbow had turned towards the doctor and kicked as hard as she could square in the chest, sending him across the room and into contact with the wall, knocking him out cold. The other nurses rushed to help the unconscious doctor, knowing that if they had tried to stop the mare, the same would happen to them.

"You do NOT tell me to calm down! I have lost MY WINGS for Celestia's sake!" Rainbow screamed, and then it suddenly hit her that she had bucked the doctor against the wall. She stopped dead in her tracks, she had not meant to hurt anypony, that was the last thing that she wanted to do.

She turned towards the door, hoping for an escape. She bolted through the doors, running into a cart full of food on her way out sending her tumbling on the cold tile. The pain medication was starting to wear off, she could feel it. Her wings were starting to pain her more, or at least the stubs where the wings had once been were. She picked herself up off the tile, a white hot pain shooting up her left leg. She had to keep running. No pony will ever forgive me for this, she thought. She ran down the hallway hysterically crying, patients and nurses alike peeking their heads out of the rooms to see what all of the commotion was about. Rainbow left the hospital in a full on sprint, the pain almost unbearable.

"This has got to be a dream..." she mumbled under her breath, as she headed towards the Everfree forest, the shame of what she had just done heavy on her mind.

She left a large path of destruction in her wake at the hospital, but the only sign of where she was going was a small drip trail of blood heading out of the hospitals main entrance, disappearing into the night.  

Once she was in the Everfree, she continued to run. There was nothing that she could do besides to run. She had to run. Her actions were not what she had wanted to happen, she just lost control when she had found out about her wings. She had hurt someone who was just trying to help her. Someone who was just trying to help. Everything felt so surreal to her, it was as if this was all just a terrible nightmare. It didn't seem like it was a nightmare, the pain in her leg and her stubs felt so real. The fact the she had thought she was in a dream seemed to be its own painkiller, somehow lessening her pains and aches. She had remembered reading one time, "When you are in a dream, your thoughts are your reality, as well as your greatest fears. What you want is what your dream becomes. If you want it to be less painful, you can. Willpower can make this happen, if your mind is string enough."

She realized that the pain she had felt had gone away when she had wanted it to... so it had to be a dream. It just had to be. She came to a sudden stop when she saw the ravine, her hooves digging into the dirt as she came to a stop inches from the edge. She looked over, jagged rocks lining the edges, the fog concealing the endless bottom below. The night air was cool and damp, and this felt good to her. She had always enjoyed the cooler seasons when it was accompanied by humidity, and that was exactly what she had wanted.

She started mumbling to herself, "This can't be pure coincidence..." she said, "I wanted the pain gone and it went away. I wanted my favorite weather... and it came. This has to be a dream."

She also remembered another part to what she had learned about dreams at one point, "An easy way to exit a dream is to let it take you on its path, or just die. Be careful about dying, however, your dream may actually be reality. Take care with what you choose to do." That was it. She had found a way to finally exit this nightmare.

She had to die.

She looked over the edge of the ravine once again. It was enough to give her a hopefully quick death, ending any pain and suffering. She had to do it. She sat there, wondering if this was really reality and not a dream. She sat there and thought about her friends. Her family. All the fun she had with her wings. She realized that she would never let anything happen to her wings. She stood up from sitting on the edge of the ravine, where she had stopped so suddenly. She looked over again, thinking this was all she had to do to wake up. She stuck one hoof over the edge, and closed her eyes, rolling forward into the ravine and falling into the mist below.

She fell for what seemed like an eternity, the cool mist calming her. She was tumbling through the air, falling faster. The adrenaline came back to her, the feeling of speed in her mane coursing through her body. She once again tried to open her wings, but nothing was there. She let out a single tear, as the rocks below began to appear in the mist. She was accelerating rapidly, approaching the rocks quicker than before. She closed her eyes before the moment of impact.

It was over.