The charcoal pegasus’ front hooves raised from the ground, his luminescent silver eyes seeming to glow in the darkness as he prepared to cave in the skull of the cowering earth pony in front of him. “Wait... No...” a frail voice said from behind him. Snapping out of his rage, Stellar Fall trembled for a moment at what he had almost done. Woe to me if I were to take another life, he thought, lowering his hooves.
“Leave, now,” he growled in his gravelly voice at the gang of four ponies who lay whimpering on the ground. Faster than the eye could blink, they sprang up and limped as quickly as their failing bodies could towards the exit of the alley in which they were defeated.
The black pegasus’ cutie mark; a trio of shooting stars superimposed over a cloud of sparkling dust, gleamed in a mote of moonlight as he turned around to eye the pony he had been attempting to save. Goal almost accomplished, he thought.
“How do you feel?” he queried.
“Like I got hit by a train,” the second pony rasped.
He looks the part, Stellar thought. The white pegasus laid on the ground, part of his yellowish mane matted with blood where his head had hit the brick wall of the alley. His left eye was swollen, almost completely covering his blue irises. His right wing was bent at an odd angle, his forehoof was swollen grotesquely, and his saddlebags were ripped in several places.
“You have a dislocated wing and a severely sprained, if not broken ankle. Come with me,” Stellar said, crouching down so as to allow the white pegasus access to his back. “Hop on. You’re going to have trouble walking with that leg.” The white pegasus shifted about, trying to find a way to stand without further injuring his joint. Finally, he succeeded, and pulled himself up on Stellar’s back.
“Thanks for saving me back there,” he said from his position atop the black pegasus as they began walking. “I thought I was a goner.”
“Think nothing of it. Why wouldn’t you just hand over your saddlebags? You could’ve avoided the fight entirely. Your health isn’t worth a couple of bits.”
The white pegasus sighed. “It’s not the bits. That gang has been beating people up all over town, night after night. I needed to stand up to them, even if it meant I had to get beat up.” He chuckled. “Hey, at least you taught ‘em a lesson there, eh?”
Stellar sighed, his pitch black face falling into shadow for a moment as he hung his head. “Thank you for stopping me back there. I nearly killed him,” he said. “All it would’ve taken was one more strike, and it all would’ve been over. Thank you for staying my hoof.”
“No problem,” the alabaster pegasus said. “Say, how’d you learn to fight like that anyway? You beat up four ponies at the same time and made it look easy,” he said.
Stellar chuckled, flicking his long, spiky black mane out of his face with a toss of his head. “I learned from the zebras in the eastern land. They have quite a few interesting fighting styles over there, as their culture revolves around feats of arms.”
“Whoa, you’ve been to the eastern lands? Cool,” the white pegasus said in awe. “Oh, by the way, my name’s Gizmo.”
“Greetings, Gizmo. I am Stellar Fall,” he rumbled. They walked in silence for a moment, passing through moonbeams and the shadows of passing clouds.
“Uh, Stellar? The clinic’s the other way.” Gizmo observed. “We’re going in the opposite direction.”
Stellar barked in laughter. “Gizmo, I’m a wanderer. I point and laugh at clinics. No, we’re going back to the place I’m renting for the duration of my stay in Ponyville. I have some herbs and tonics in there that could help with your injuries.”
“Uhh... I think maybe I’d prefer the clinic,” Gizmo said warily from Stellar’s back.
“I could always let you down here, and you could walk there,” the black pegasus said wryly. “Or fly, you could always do that too.”
Gizmo sputtered for a moment, before conceding defeat. "Fine, I guess we're doing it your way," he said dejectedly.
They continued walking in silence for the remainder of the relatively short journey to Stellar’s rental space, which turned out to be a rather dilapidated building. Upon entering the front door, Gizmo gasped. “Someone had the nerve to charge you to live in this?!” he said indignantly. “They should be paying you, for the condition of this place!” Indeed, they should have. The walls were almost entirely covered in dry rot, and spiderwebs adorned nearly every available corner. The window on the far wall of the one-room living space was broken, letting in a chilled night breeze, and, judging by the small, moonlit puddle on the ground underneath it, a fair amount of water when the rain fell. A pallet and a pair of tattered saddlebags were the only items in the entire room that would indicate a pony lived there.
Stellar merely laughed. “It was cheap,” he said simply, strolling to the pallet on the floor. “Alright, roll off carefully, and don’t land on your wing,” he said, crouching. The white pegasus complied, grunting when he jarred his injured foreleg. The black pegasus turned to the saddlebags lying on the floor, removing a small glass bottle full of an unidentified black goop and a metal flask. He handed the flask to Gizmo and removed the top of the glass bottle with a deft flick of his hoof. He sat the unscrewed bottle to the side and withdrew a small splint from his saddlebag. Gingerly wrapping it around the injured pegasus’ injured foreleg, he secured it with a knot.
“Drink up,” he said, looking pointedly at the metal flask.
“What is it?” Gizmo said warily.
Stellar chuckled. “It’s just milk. Make sure you drink plenty while this ankle is healing, I’m pretty sure it’s fractured. The calcium will encourage it to repair itself quicker,” he said, picking up the bottle of black ointment and removing some of it with his hoof. “This’ll hurt a bit, just hold still,” he advised, crouching next to Gizmo and rubbing some of the black ointment onto the base of his dislocated wing.
The white pegasus flinched, then cocked an eyebrow. “Whoa, that feels funny. What is it?” Gizmo queried, looking back over his shoulder.
“It’s a local anesthetic, distilled from the seeds of the poppy plant,” Stellar replied. “Now drink the milk like I told you.”
“Fine, fine,” Gizmo said, unscrewing the cap of the flask and taking a sip. “AUGH!” he said, spewing the mouthful out. “This isn’t milk!”
Stellar chuckled. “Actually, it is. I just like to spike mine a little. Gives it a bit more bite,” he smiled. “Now, drink it.”
Shuddering, the white pegasus tipped the bottle back and downed the rest in one gulp. “Remind me never to accept drinks from you again,” he said. Stellar merely chuckled.
“This won’t hurt a bit,” he said sarcastically. “Bite down on this. He pulled a relatively clean rag out of the saddlebags on the floor. Biting down lightly on the base of Gizmo’s wing, he noted the look of pain that flitted across the white pegasus’ face. With a deft twist and a pop, the wing was back in socket.
“Ow!” Gizmo shouted, biting the rag as hard as he could, before spitting it out and staring back at his wing. “Heh, it didn’t hurt as much as it usually does,” he commented, flexing his wing.
Stellar cocked an eyebrow. “Usually?”
The white pegasus blushed. “I’ve done that a few times,” he said sheepishly.
“The dislocation, or getting in fights that you can’t handle?”
“To be honest? Both.”
Stellar grunted, closing the saddlebags and propping them up against the wall. “Let’s get you home,” he said. “You’ll need to rest well if you want that ankle to heal quickly. As for flying, you should be fine within the week. It wasn’t a severe dislocation.” He bent down and used his wing to help the injured pegasus rise. “Keep your weight off that ankle.”
Gizmo leaned against Stellar, grateful for the support. “Thanks again for the help back there. Those gangers sure got what was coming for them,” the white pegasus grinned as they slowly made their way through the door of the one-room rental space. Stellar gazed at him contemplatively, his silver eyes shining in the moonlight.
“You thanked me for teaching the gang a lesson, not helping you. Why?” the charcoal pegasus queried.
Gizmo sighed. “I used to be just like them. My parents abandoned me when I was young, and when I got to my highschool years, I joined a gang. It scares me to think how close I came to becoming a criminal. If it hadn’t been for Big Mac teaching us all a lesson one night, I could be in prison right now. Ever since then, I’ve done my best to help ponies like them, whether it hurts me or not. I couldn’t stand to see one of them become what I nearly was.”
“Commendable,” Stellar stated simply. “You should try not doing it in a way which causes you so much physical harm, though.” Gizmo chuckled. “Which way?” the silver-eyed pegasus queried. Gizmo pointed his nose to the left, and they walked in silence for the duration of the short journey, passing by the quaint cottages of Ponyville and walking through dusty motes of moonlight that filtered through the trees that lined the pathways until they arrived at Gizmo’s dwelling: a small, one story cottage with a thatched roof.
“Get some rest,” Stellar said, removing the aid of his support from Gizmo as they reached the front door. He was in the process of leaving when he was interrupted by the white pegasus.
“Say, you said you were a wanderer. How long are you planning on staying here, and where are you going next?” he asked.
“Just long enough to rest up and resupply. I never stay in one place too long. To answer your second question,” he said, glancing into the distance, “I’m going there. To Canterlot.” He pointed into the distance at the barely visible lights of the city suspended on the side of a mountain. At this, Gizmo seemed to think for a moment.
“You seem like an honorable enough pony. As long as I can trust you not to run off with my stuff, you could stay in the guest room here. It’s sure to be warmer than that rotten shack you’re renting, and you get a free breakfast to boot.” Gizmo smiled, flicking his blond mane out of his eyes with a toss of his head. “Heck, you can use the shower if you want, I don’t care. Make yourself at home,” he said, stepping inside and opening the door wider.
“Wait,” Stellar said simply, taking off and flying back in the direction of his rental.
“What an odd pony,” Gizmo said quietly, as he shut the door, making sure to leave it unlocked for his new visitor.