Wing Care 101: Snagged!

TheCuriousSeed

Chapter 4, let's travel to Storyland once more!

~Mae awoke to find leaves in her abode, or rather, leaf scraps. She picked them up and placed them in a pile kept for recycling leaves. She then flew to her Wing Care shop to start her day.

~The morning started out pretty routine when she saw three Fast Flyers enter, their wings damaged. Neverfairy wings can be completely healed, but only with like wing patterns. They can't, however, feel pain except at the stalks in the fairies' backs. Also, willingly sacrificing one's wings for a noble reason often turned said wings into a precious set appearing richer than jewels or precious metals. These three fairies, however, came in because they were caught in some tiny twigs.

~"How are we supposed to fly with our wings like this?" asked one Fast Flyer.

~"Yeah," said another. "My sisters and I need our wings for our work."

~"Our brother's right," said the third. "Without our wings, we're useless."

~Mae had seen snagged wings before, but she couldn't heal them, only clean them. Fortunately, she knew some Healing Talents could heal snagged wings, so she referred the Fast Flying triplets to a Healer. Hopefully no one else would come in with snagged wings because those were irreparable for her.

~Foxglove came in and asked, "What happened to those three Fast Flyers?"

~"Snagged wings," answered Mae.

~"Well, that bites. Anyway, my wings could use a fresh-up. You see, I was trying on some new outfits when I was bombarded by a colony of ants and I got my wings covered in tiny ant prints because they were muddy. I had to change clothes first because no way I was wearing mud throughout the Hollow."

~Mae took in this info and set to work cleaning Foxglove's wings. Just then Daylily same by carrying a skunk kit that was absolutely filthy.

~"Do you know where I can give Yentl a bath?" asked Daylily. "She's really caked in mud and other debris, plus she ran out of her special defence trying to ward off a hawk."

~"Try the Bath Talents," suggested Mae.

~"I was just there, but the Bath Talents refuse to bathe a skunk and all the Animal Talents' bathing tools were stolen."

~"Stolen?"

~"Even the skunk cleansers."

~"I don't have anything that'll be safe for a kit to bathe in since the cleansers we Wing Cleansers use are a little too fragrant for the rest of the Animal Kingdom."

~Daylily sighed and said in Skunk, "Guess we'll have to take you to a Water Talent that can also work with skunks."

~Once Foxglove's wings were clean and dry, she thanked Mae and flew away. Mae then saw the Fast Flying triplets again, their wings coated in some sort of bandaging stuff. The triplets couldn't fly with their wings bandaged, so they had some stronger Fast Flyers carry them there since they didn't like to walk very far. They wanted their wings freshened, but upon closer inspection, Mae decided it better to use a cleanser meant for damaged wings. It took a little longer to freshen the wings, but at least the damage was unlikely to worsen. Afterwards, the Fast Flying triplets left, their still-flighted Fast Flyer friends  carrying them off.

~This feels like one of those days, thought Mae.

~At the end of the day of wing washing, Mae packed up shop and was on her way home when she saw Daylily still carrying a filthy Yentl the Skunk Kit in her arms, but she had been crying because Yentl was extremely sad.

~"No one wanted to help us," Daylily sobbed. "We couldn't find our animal cleansing tools and now Yentl here could end up infected because everyone else we tried refused to clean her or even loan us the supplies to do so. Plus, she can't clean all this mud off herself either..." Daylily sobbed harder.

~Mae, not wanting to see a friend so distraught she was sobbing and teary, decided to help. "I have a new cleanser that might be safe enough to use on kits," she told Daylily.

~Mae offered to cleanse Daylily too, which Daylily gladly accepted. Daylily said Yentl needed it much worse, so she and Mae worked together to cleanse Yentl of all that debris, then Daylily took her turn. Daylily was very glad to finally have a clean kit and even gladder to be clean herself. As thanks, Daylily invited Mae to join her and Yentl back to the skunk den Yentl belonged to. It was pretty far off, but once there, Daylily had Yentl go inside her den and the little kit fell fast asleep. Time for the fairies to return to their own homes.

~But that night, as Mae was headed home, she got caught on a small twig by a sleeve! She tried to free herself by flying away, but Mae was too light and the twig too strong for said twig to break off! Not only that, one of her wings got caught in a slightly stronger twig! She called for help, but it seemed no one could hear her! The more she struggled, the more entangled she became until finally...

~"Hurry!" called Daylily as she, Holly, Heidi, Phoebe and Hickory, who pulled the entire team by her arms and did the flying, rushed to Mae.

~"Help! I can't get free!" Mae cried.

~The Forest Talents are going to have such a field day with this, thought Heidi as she easily broke the twigs that ensnared Mae by wing and sleeve. "Are you okay?" she asked aloud.

~"I am now," answered Mae.

~"Where were you headed?" asked Hickory.

~"Home."

~"C'mon, let's get you back home," said Phoebe. "It's dangerous to be out this late alone even for a Scout."

~Once Mae was back home, no way she was going back out until daybreak. She was ready to go back to a routine of wing care at her shop. She relished the satisfaction of perfectly cleaned wings.

~Maybe getting some sleep will help, thought Mae, drifting to sleep.

~The next day was back to normal and no one else reported snagged wings, so Mae felt right once again. She cleaned wings as normal and at the end of each day felt a great satisfaction of a task well done. Her friends still came to visit, but it was nice to see her customers happy, making her happy too.

Hope you enjoyed this last chapter of Wing Care 101. Here's to happy reading!