Nimbus

>Your fluffy pony pegasus wants to fly more than anything. You name her Nimbus.
>She loves to play "airplane", and spends quite a bit of her time drawing the sky when she isn't eating her crayons.
>It is rather heartbreaking to know that she will never fly naturally.
>On second thought, that sounds like a challenge.
>An engineering challenge.
>Your very favorite KIND of challenge.
>By God, fluffy pony biology is going to rue the day it crossed you.
>You set to work immediately.

>You change Nimbus' diet to include more protein, with a balance shifted towards amino acids necessary for building muscle. She doesn't like the new food, but puts up with it for the sake of flying.
>You score some Trenbolone-Acetate from a farm supply company and calculate the safe dose for a fluffy pony. It's nearly homeopathic.
>You put her on a strict exercise regimen of flapping her little wings for hours each day.
>After about two months, her (previously nonexistent) muscle mass has increased dramatically.
>You now own what is possibly the strongest fluffy pony in the world.
>You are fairly sure that her organs will begin failing soon, but that isn't important.
>You've got a dream to fulfill.

>Nimbus has reached a plateu with her exercise. It appears you have more or less reached the limit of fluffy pony biology.
>She still cannot fly, though.
>Like hell that's going to get you to give up.
>you head out and get some supplies.
>when you get back, Nimbuss is jumping and flapping her wings, never quite getting airborne.
>"Wan fwy!" she cries in frustration
>"I know you do, fluffy, and today just might be the day!"
>You call her over and begin shaving off fluff, especially around the wings, to give them a greater effective area and freedom of movement.
>She is uncomfortable with this, but goes along with it when you tell her it is all to help her fly.
>From your calcuations, she still shouldn't be able to fly, but you have her try it anyway.
>Nope.
>You then shave most of the fluff off her belly to save weight and drag. Without it she may die of hypothermia, so you attach a small iron oxide hand warmer pad to her belly with surgical tape.
>you dose her with one miligram of dexamphetamine and wait an hour.
>It's go time.
>You take her into your back yard and toss her up into the air.
>She flaps her hardest, but can't quite maintain level flight, and drifts slowly downward.
>Shit, there wasn't a lot of leeway in your calculations, but you thought that would work. She's still just a tiny bit too heavy. It's probably the extra muscle mass in places unrelated to flying.
>Nimbus looks disappointed. "Wan fwy daddy!" she mewls.
>You get to thinking.
>Well, there is ONE thing you didn't try.

>You call her over and ready your supplies. You tell her that everything that you are about to do is so that she can fly. You tell her to be a brave little fluffy pony so she can see her dream come true.
>Nimbus' miniscule brain cannot understand what you mean.
>you get out your zip ties, and daisy chain a few to get zip ties long enough to attach nimbus to a length of 2x10 around the torso.
>She squirms a little, but you tell her to keep still so she can fly
>You had to pull some strings to get a syringe of local anestetic, so in some way you're happy you get to use it.
>you numb both of her hind legs. She screams out in pain when she feels the needle, but quickly returns to normal when the pain subsides.
>After a few seconds, she notices she can't feel her legs. "Where back weggy go?" she asks
>you tell her she is a good fluffy pony, and that she will get to fly soon.
>You put a smaller zip tie around the base of each of her back legs and cinch them down as tight as you can, cutting off blood flow to her back legs completely
>You take a bone saw and in two quick motions you sever a leg. Nimbus doesn't feel a thing. You discard the leg outside her field of vision.
>You quickly remove the other leg, and then use surgical tape to fix a piece of trauma pad over each stump.
>She should be light enough to fly now.
>Hopefully the anestetic hasn't sapped her strength too much to fly. You'd prefer she make her first flight before the pain starts kicking in.

>You use the bloody saw to cut her restraints and pick her up
>Nimbus notices that her back legs are gone and a sense of loss sinks in. She begins to panic.
>"Whew weggies? gif back weggies!"
>You tell her that she can't fly if she has her legs. You do want to fly, right?
>She looks up with big, sad eyes and weakly affirms "fwuffy wan' fwy."
>That's my little trooper.
>You take your winged burrito to the back yard, give it another does of dexamphetamine, and make sure it empties it's bowels to save weight.
>This may be your last chance.
>"Ready to fly?" you ask
>"fwuffy weady fwy!"
>You toss nimbus into the air. Her little wings flap furiously.

>At first you think you've failed, but she redoubles her efforts and actually starts gaining altitude.
>"Fwuffy fwying! she cries, probably the happiest you've seen her in spite of the loss of her legs.
>You cheer her on as she flutters higher and higher.
>She clears the fence of your back yard and starts drifting into the alleyway
>you tell her to come back, but either she is so caught up in flying that doesn't want to or she has no real ability to alter her course.
>She hits a tree and tumbles down out of sight. Yep, she probably couldn't steer.
>you find her broken corpse in the alleyway, dead from a broken neck.
>Poor nibus. At least her dream came true.
>Oh well, it can't be helped. Anyway, you caught it on video.
>Time to cut your losses, update your project log and collect on a few bets.
>Another victory for the applied sciences!