Chapter 2: A Cure

Hyde opened his eyes and found that his hoofcuffs had disappeared. He stood up and realized with a groan that his entire body was sore, especially his wings. The moment he folded his wings he noticed they seemed very ….. light and they ached. Walking to the only mirror in the room took considerable effort but he finally sat down and looked at himself in the glass. He winced against the pain as he opened one wing to find all the feathers gone and the other wing looked the same. You couldn't really call them wings anymore because they were just skin over bones. He looked behind him and found his stripped wings. What happened last night was really no dream. He quickly looked around for his feathers and found two piles of brown feathers with the tips covered in dried blood on the ground around him. He gathered the piles in his hooves and carried them to the fire, where he lay down and looked down at them solemnly.

"How could he do this to me? Now I'll never be able to fly again."

Tears formed and he cried into what once were his wings. What do you call a flightless Pegasus?

He didn't notice Jekyll had come in until he heard the clip-clopping of his hooves on the smooth floor. Hyde scrambled to his hooves as fast as he could and turned to face his other half, wiping away any remaining tears as fast as he could.

"How could you do this?" Hyde gestured with his hoof to the two piles of feathers on the ground.

"I did what had to be done."

"I enjoyed the feeling of flying in the air. It was the one thing I loved most about my life."

"Exactly, that was the one thing that made you truly happy and I had to take it to teach you that there are consequences for your actions."

"But that's not fair."

"Life isn't fair sometimes."

Hyde sat down with a huff and looked down at his piles of feathers. He wasn't going to get any more answers from Jekyll for his motives but… he knew of some pony who could maybe help. There was a zebra rumored to live in an alleyway whom many had gotten aid and wisdom from. She was known to know the art of voodoo magic with many potions and cures for all kinds of illnesses. Maybe she could have some sort of cure for his wings. He quickly lied to Jekyll, telling him that he was going to go take a walk and stretch his legs from the long sleep he'd awoken from. Jekyll agreed, and he put on his black top hat and cloak calmly trotted out the door and onto the cobblestone streets of London. It took a couple tries but he finally found the right alleyway. He found her sitting on a square pillow in a small tent. Inside the tent, there were wooden masks on hooks which had been carved into the poles that held her tent up. Sitting against the back part of the tent there was a cabinet with chemicals and potions inside. A crystal ball sat on her far right and a black, empty, caldron on her far left. The zebra beckoned him closer with her hoof and Hyde stepped nearer to her.

"Please Sit."

He sat on the only other square pillow, which was across from her.

"You have come to seek my help because something is troubling you. What is it?"

"It would be easier to show you." He turned around and sat back on the pillow and quickly untied his black cloak, letting it fall to the floor. He opened his bony wings, waited a few moments, closed them, turned back around and sat to face her once again, leaving his black cloak on the floor.

"That is a sad sight indeed." said the zebra and Hyde nodded his head.

"Is there any way you can grow my feathers back?"

"Once a Pegasus reaches adolescence, he molts his feathers and permanent ones grow in their place. I'm sorry but they're gone for good."

"Is there any way to stick them back on using unicorn magic?"

"The best spell that a unicorn could use would only stick them to your wings with a very weak magical bond. The smallest gust of wind would blow them away so they would be of no use for flight."

"I'm willing to try anything."

"Here is the spell incantation." The zebra said as she handed Hyde a scroll scribbled with words.

"Thank you," Hyde said as he tied his cloak around himself, grabbed the scroll out of her hoof and put his wing around it to carry it back to Jekyll. He turned to start his long walk back when he stopped and turned back to look at the zebra.

"May I ask your name, just in case I need to find you again?"

The zebra seemed startled by the question but answered with a small smile, "Melina. No one has ever asked me my name before. Thank you."

Hyde mirrored the small smile she had and turned back to continue his long walk toward the house that he and Jekyll shared.

A half an hour later Hyde pushed the door open carefully and stepped into the strange comfort of Jekyll's laboratory. He shut the door with a small creak and quickly looked around, afraid that Jekyll was here and had noticed the noise but he was relieved to find the laboratory empty and trotted back to the rug where he had been laying the night before and sadly looked at the two piles of his feathers once again. He grabbed a jar, put all of his feathers into it and then rolled the scroll around the jar. Then he put his hoof around both items to protect them from the hooves of Jekyll and fell asleep.