//------------------------------//
// Chapter Seven 
// Story: Clipped Wings 
// by Desrium 
//------------------------------//

Chapter Seven

Trust is but a fragile bridge, dangling over a burning pit filled with spikes and snakes. Fire resistant snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? 

Falcon sat anxiously outside a closed door, cream paint like the walls, still in good condition on the account that it still stood and there weren’t strips of paint collecting on the concrete floor. Steiner was on the other side, acting as an emissary for the blank flanked, wingless pegasus. Klaxon’s mood towards Falcon had soured considerably. Steiner was just making sure Klaxon wouldn’t pummel him when Falcon was eventually allowed into the room to speak and ask for forgiveness. 

Their discussion was muffled, making Falcon question just how thick the doors and walls were. It would make sense seeing as this basement was a relic of the time before the Megaspells fell. Whoever added it was clearly thinking of building something that would not only survive them but protect from the nastiness that would be left over. Clearly their effort was for naught seeing as the walls were not thick slabs of metal as per a Stable-Tec Stable, the peeling paint revealed as much, though Falcon fancied the dumpster-door as the Wasteland equivalent of a Stable’s gear shaped bulwark of an entrance. The fact remained however that the basement was indeed sturdy and much more likely to maintain its structural integrity long after the building above came down on itself. “They’d probably dig a tunnel entrance out of here when that happens,” thought Falcon Wing, mulling the possibilities over while he waited for Steiner to emerge from beyond the doorway. He glanced around the cellar, from the shelves to the mattress and the walls, eying each object with a scrutinizing gaze. “Assuming they haven’t done so already…” he mentally noted. 

The doorknob turned, the door opened. “He wasn’t as mad at you as you thought. You could have probably come in and said what you had to say without my services,” Steiner said while stepping out of the room, as if he were doing some kind of situational report. Oh wait, of course he was. 

“That was a long talk then, if that were the case,” Falcon retorted. Steiner shrugged.

“He had to get some things off of his chest. He chose to settle it with me than you since, well... he’s known me for a long time while he's only known you for a few hours. And you haven’t exactly proven yourself an able… confidant,” the dark blue hornless unicorn replied. Falcon raised a brow, about to voice his confusion. He was sure these ponies wouldn’t know the meaning of empathy if the word flew into their skulls, bounced around them for a good minute and finally lodged itself in their brains. 

“I poked fun at him for it, he got angry, engaged in a bit of a verbal battle and I kicked his sorry ass. It’s the least I could have done for him laughing at what happened earlier” Steiner said, his words strangling Falcon’s infant words while they were still in the mental crib. 

“There we go,” Falcon thought. Situation normal, all fucked up. “You sure you haven’t riled him up to take it out on me? You know, for starting that thing earlier?” Falcon countered warily.

Steiner chuckled. “It would be funny if that were the case. Mind leaving the door open just a bit, so I could listen to any would-be fireworks?” he asked. Without replying, Falcon stepped around him and shut the door. He saw the horseshoe-looking lock above the knob and turned it. No opening the door from the other side, though if Falcon’s lasting suspicions were true, Steiner could undo the lock with his latent magical ability, for he was a unicorn without a horn still able to do magic. 

Falcon turned to look at Klaxon. The bronze-colored earth pony was lying on his back upon an old mattress so worn that hay was poking out of its seams in some places. It was tucked into the upper left corner of the room from the door. Another hay mattress was in the upper right, Steiner’s bedding. There were small drawers, small green metal cabinets, large green metal cabinets and shelves of… stuff. Just… stuff that the two had scavenged from the outside, perhaps even from upstairs. Most notably was Klaxon’s collection of books arranged on the walls as if the relatively tiny room was a bonafide library. While the room was packed with their loot, it was not cluttered or confused. In addition to being crafty, the two ponies were space efficient and organized, too. 

“And this is just the bedroom. No wonder you two have lasted as well as you have out here!” Falcon complimented, attempting to spark conversation, attempting to make Klaxon reconsider his stance on the former pegasus. “I can so too hold a conversation! Not that anypony would talk to me for a length of time…except Dr. Patchenfix but that was only about how I had managed to get hurt and what I needed to do to get better and how much it was gonna cost Flint and Erasure…”  he thought, feeling his spirits dampen when he thought of his caregivers. Were they worried about him? He was gone from home for…hours, more than a day at that. Or were they glad to be rid of him? Free of the burden of caring for him and the risk of expenses that arose any time he went outside and had to deal with other pegasi. 

“…-o you do that often?” the last of Klaxon’s question echoed in his mind. Falcon shook his head. “Sorry, what was that?” he replied, pulling himself together.

“Start a conversation and then zone out like some kind of druggie, complete with that dumb look on your face and everything,” Klaxon nickered, sitting up on his bedding now. “You… aren’t one, right? You seem a bit young and small to be hooked on something,” he added, eying the red colt, one brow raised. “Unless that’s what the drugs have done to you…”

Falcon resisted the urge to blurt out “What the fuck?” and forced himself to remember why he was even speaking to Klaxon in the first place. He also really did not want to give the stallion the satisfaction. “No, I’m not an addict, my only exposure to drugs have been for purely medical reasons and in controlled doses,” Falcon corrected him as punctually as he could manage. 

That seemed to do the trick as Klaxon laid back down, eyes up to the ceiling. “That’s good. I didn’t want to put up with that shit again,” he said. 

“Again?” Falcon pondered. He didn’t ask. He was already walking on thin ice with Klaxon and he didn’t have wings anymore. Should he fall through there was no coming back. No point in prodding at whatever insecurity it was that made Klaxon the jerk he was. 

“So,” Klaxon spoke up. Falcon noted that Klaxon had said more in this little apology session than he had himself. “get it over with. Say what you gotta say and go lay in a corner or something. It’s late as hell and I’m in the mood for some shuteye.”

“I am sorry for what I said before. It was rude of me especially since you have been so… kind” Falcon said, choosing his wording carefully. “I will make an effort to mind what I say, I promise.”

“Good,” The stallion replied, glancing down to look at the red colt. “Anything else you want to delay my sleep with?” he asked.

“Actually, yes,” Falcon said, seizing the opportunity to answer one of his nagging questions. “How’d you get your name? Isn’t a Klaxon some kind of alarm? Why is your cutie mark an owl? A really mad one by the looks of it?” 

“I used to be a lookout. A sentry. I raised the alarm when trouble came a-knocking. Ponies started calling me Klaxon, I took it as another name,” Klaxon said in an almost dreamily voice, being lost in memories he had no intention of sharing with the wingless Pegasus. Falcon thought about this. Lookout would have been the ideal job for a pony with Klaxon’s brilliant vision. The owl cutie mark, by extension, made a little more sense but… why was it glaring? Klaxon answered that with one sentence. “Cutie mark appeared the day I was first trusted with a rifle. Blew the heads off of raiders trying to launch a midnight attack on my old town.” 

Falcon was quiet. Glaring owl, earned by turning raider pony heads into mush. Simple enough.

“Anything else?” Klaxon asked somewhat irritably.

“No Mr. Klaxon, sir,” he replied. Judging by the fact he didn’t wear a battle saddle now and instead had a strap-holstered 10 millimeter pistol, Falcon guessed the bronze stallion did not care much for killing… which must’ve been confusing or even infuriating for him since he got the icon by murder. Murder in self-defense, but still murder. 

There was a click. Falcon turned his head, watching as the door knob glowed a dim red, turned and opened. Steiner stepped into the room. “That was a long time just to say, ‘I am sorry for asking about things that aren’t my business’; frankly I was getting tired and I’m sure Klaxon brought up the fact that it is late…”

“Yup,” The earth pony chimed in. 

“Right then. Off to bed. Falcon you can go sleep on the welcoming mat if the floor doesn’t interest you,” Steiner said with a dismissive wave of his hoof. He then walked over to his bedding, undid his straps and laid his guns gingerly beside it enveloped in a magical glow. 

“Called it,” Falcon mused, showing no reaction to the sight. He only nodded and trotted out of the room. He turned to close the door, only to see that it was glowing red and swung shut before he could even reach out for the knob.