Clipped Wings

by CptBrony

Cruel World

“Get back here!”

Yafid and Vadim ran as fast as they could. Flying would certainly mean the older, stronger griffin would catch them, so they stayed low to the ground. The crowd around them didn’t care about the vendor losing a couple of fish, and simply stood out of the way so the kids could run.

They’d been at the same routine for four years, ever since the city was sacked. After the siege ended, Yafid and Vadim crawled out of their hiding place and looked around; Yafid’s ma was gone, only a bloody puddle on the floor left to signal she had been there. After that, they just had to survive. With no family and everyone who survived looking out for themselves, the little ones had to steal food to live. They ran through crowd and lost sight of the vendor. When they were certain he was gone for good, they took their prizes and rushed to their alleyway home.

After running from the destroyed schoolhouse, Yafid and Vadim looked everywhere for shelter. In between some buildings, they found a hole in the ground that led to some old sewer tunnels, from before modern plumbing. Nothing was there but stale air, and the entrance was just small enough that fully grown griffins couldn’t get them, so they decided to make it their new home.

They had a cooking spot right toward the entrance to avoid burning up all their air. Each of the little ones took a side of the small room. At first, they just lay on the ground, cold and hurting every night, but over time, they took scraps of cloth and soft materials they found to make small beds for themselves. As the years passed, they started to decorate a little, anything that they could find in the ruins that wasn’t totally destroyed.

Most of the city was in complete ruins. They had originally had over five hundred thousand residents; now, that number floated around three hundred thousand. They lost a great deal of griffins in those few days. Most of the city was totally uninhabitable, too, and poverty was everywhere. The city government was trying to rebuild, but it was a slow process taking back the ruined sections of the city.

No one lived in those areas, but they were still dangerous. Crumbling buildings and infrastructure could kill an unsuspecting adventurer, especially since all the city’s tallest buildings were coming down over time. Yafid and Vadim didn’t particularly care, they went out anyway to see what they could salvage. Sometimes, if they found something particularly valuable, they could sell it and use the money for really good food. Most of those residents were long dead or gone, now, so it wasn’t like they would be looking for it.

Yafid and Vadim slid into their home and got right to starting up a small fire to cook their fish. They always had flint in their house in case the nights got too cold or for cooking. They had it a lot better than just about any other kid in the city. Sure, they had to get their own food and stuff, but their home was pretty comfortable relative to anywhere else, and they knew the city in and out because of their exploration. Everyone knew them as the local troublemakers, though, which could be either problematic or fun.

“What kind of fish is this?” Vadim asked. He coughed after asking; the stale air was never fun to hang around in, but it was only slightly worse than outside.

“It’s trout,” Yafid replied. “Come on, dude, we took trout before, I would think you’d know what it looks like by now.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Vadim said. “You gonna keep that fire burning or what?”

“I’m on it, I’m on it,” Yafid said.

Vadim had been coughing for a long time. It was kind of like the Black Lung in miners, but not nearly as serious. Yafid had managed to avoid it somehow, but it was mostly just luck. Maybe it had something to do with being the one who kept watch more often. He would do the ruin diving, but Vadim always said he was better at it.

When the fire was going strong, Yafid and Vadim put the trout over and got cooking. Whenever they cooked something good, they could always hear older griffons outside coming by hoping for food. When they realized they couldn’t get inside, though, they would leave.

As usual, they heard some sounds outside the hole. Someone out there was commenting how good the trout smelled and how hungry they were. Yafid and Vadim sat there with smug grins on their faces, happy with themselves for succeeding where so many adults failed. They wouldn’t help the kids, why should the kids help them?

Then something unexpected happened. A tiny griffon head poked through the hole followed by the body it was attached to. Yafid and Vadim froze as a griffon even younger than them crawled into their home. When the little one saw them, she froze, eyes darting between them and the fire.

“O-oh, sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you lived here…”

“Uh, yeah, we do,” Vadim replied.

“I-I just smelled it and followed, I’m sorry.” Her stomach growled loudly and the griffon shrunk back. “I’ll get out…”

“Hang on,” Vadim said with a sign. He looked at Yafid, who looked back understanding. She was obviously really hungry. “You want some trout?”

The little griffon blinked and stared. “R-really?” she asked.

“Come on,” Vadim said. “Even we eat better than you from the looks of it.”

“Seriously,” Yafid said. “Come here and have some trout.”

“T-thank you,” the little griffon said meekly. She crawled forward and sat by the fire. “It’s so warm…”

“Where are your parents?” Yafid asked.

“T-They work in the mines,” the little one said. “I don’t get to see them much, and they usually come home super tired. We don’t talk much.”

“They work in the mines?” Yafid asked. “Doesn’t that pay pretty well?”

“The seventh street gang takes a lot of their money when they come home,” the little one said. “They say it’s ‘protection’ money.”

“That’s messed,” Vadim grumbled.

“That’s not good,” Yafid said. “And the police won’t do anything?”

“Some of them ARE police,” the little one said. Vadim nearly choked on his food. “We can’t do anything. They take our moving money so we can’t leave.”

“Jeeze, I’m sorry,” Yafid said.

The little one gobbled down the trout in a heartbeat and let out a little burp. She looked much happier now that she had some food in her system, but the terminal sadness of this city was still there. It would always be there.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I have a home. Not many can say that.”

“Good attitude,” Vadim said. “Keep positive.”

“I will,” she said. “Thank you for the trout!”

“Sure thing. Come by any time,” Yafid said. The little one smiled and made her way out.

The boys knew it was a struggle out there, and they knew it all too well. While they weren’t interested in helping the grown, independent griffons who wouldn’t give them the time of day, they were more than ready to help the other young ones who were stuck in a bad place. That little griffon came by almost every day for a while after that.

Then, one day, she just stopped coming. They knew her neighborhood, but not exactly where she lived. One day, they went over there to see if she was okay and they found out she was finally gone. Her parents had hid money from the gang well enough to save up to leave. The gang found out and tried to get them as they left, but her dad stayed and distracted them while she and her mom escaped. He never made it out.

These guys were awful. They found out that on top of extorting money and murdering that dude, they would take from locals in non-financial ways f they couldn’t pay the “protection” money. Food, labor, and worse, these guys were pure evil. And no one could stand against them.

Yafid and Vadim made it their goal to mess with them. Whenever they went out scavenging, they would come to the neighborhood and sneak around to steal what the gang took from griffons and give it back. No one ever saw them do it. The gang didn’t know it was them, and the locals didn’t know who was bringing their money back.

It wasn’t long before the gang realized they were being stolen from. Thankfully, their immediate and permanent assumption was that it was some rival gang, not the griffons they stole from. It made it harder to steal from them, but the boys always found a way.

One night, after a successful raiding run on a particularly ruined section of the city, they dropped their stuff in the house and made their way to the neighborhood. In the dead of night, they could easily come in and take anything. It was cloudy all the time over the city since the war, and they had become masters of silent flight. All they had to do was swoop down on the area, move fast, and bolt. Just like usual.

The boys glided over the neighborhood and searched for what was likely a hiding place. They had gotten good at finding them, so good that the only way they had a hard time finding the stash was when it was in one of the gangsters’ houses. Even then, they could easily sneak in and jack whatever they saw plus some extra for themselves.

Tonight, though, the mark was a bit more obvious.

“Yafid, over there,” Vadim whispered.

There was a pile of coins sitting on a picnic table behind a house with a sleeping griffon behind it. It was just sitting there as if it had been being counted and the guy fell asleep on the job. Two sacks were still unopened. It was easy pickings.

“Let’s do it,” Yafid said

Yafid and Vadim dove forward and went for the sacks. They glided silently through the air, cutting it like a honed knife through cheesecake. But right as they got close, everything went wrong.

“THERE!”

A voice rang out from above and to the side, throwing off the boys and forcing them to retreat from being caught. But before they could get away, three more griffons came from seemingly thin air and charged them in the air.

“RUN!” Yafid shouted.

They careened up and took off forward, but their speed was no match for the adults they were messing with. In mere moments, both Yafid and Vadim were in the claws of the gangsters and they all crashed to the street below.

Yafid flailed his talons out and caught one in the eye, making him let go, and ran. The rest of them gave chase, and the one whose eye he got switched places with the one holding Vadim.

“Get that little cockatrice!” he said angrily.

Yafid flew harder than he had ever flown to get away from his foes. He weaved between buildings trying to lose them, but had no luck. They were right on his tail the whole time. It was only when he flew into a section of the city with tighter corners that he was able to get out of sight. After losing his pursuers, Yafid rushed back to where Vadim was being held. As he got closer, he could hear screams of pain and double-timed it.

When he arrived on scene, he saw Vadim on the ground, one wing a twisted mess and the other missing, and his captor standing over him with a sick grin. Yafid felt anger explode in him and dive-bombed toward the gangster.

“LEAVE MY FRIEND ALONE!” he shouted. The captor turned just in time for Yafid to be on him, talons out. The little griffon raked his talons across the gangster’s throat, ripping it apart and throwing the griffon off Vadim. When Yafid turned around, the gangster was twitching on the ground, rapidly losing blood, and Vadim was trying to crawl away.

“Vadim!” Yafid cried. He ran over to his friend and looked at his wings; they were completely destroyed. They wouldn’t be able to fly out of there. “Don’t worry, Vadim, I’ll get you out!”

Yafid put his friend on his back and started running. He stuck to the shadows and the houses as much as possible in case the gangsters came back. Vadim was catatonic on Yafid’s back and couldn’t speak at all, barely conscious.

It took some time, but Yafid was able to get Vadim out and back to their home underground. He was bleeding from the stump of his wing, but not so much that it wasn’t manageable. Yafid grabbed some cloth and staunched the bleeding.

“Vadim…” Yafid said. Vadim didn’t reply. He simply didn’t have the energy.

Yafid made sure Vadim was relatively comfortable and safe and then went to sleep. The next morning, when he woke up, he checked on Vadim. His friend was cold, clammy, and shaking.

“Vadim?!” Yafid said.

“Yafid..?” Vadim replied shakily. “I don’t feel so good…”

“You took some hits,” Yafid said, tears starting to well up in his eyes. “But you’re a tough guy, I’ll tell you that.”

“Ha, gotta be,” Vadim said. He coughed. “This isn’t very good.”

“What’s wrong?” Yafid asked.

“I think I’m sick,” Vadim said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you some medicine,” Yafid said.

Before Vadim could reply, Yafid was off and on the hunt. There weren’t many doctor’s offices left in the city, as most of them packed up and left after the war, and the few who were left took advantage of everyone who came to see them. They were basically war profiteers, and in spite of everyone hating them, they had to see them or none at all.

Yafid tried to get medicine, but the doctors all told him to get lost and their medicine was locked up tight. He had no way of getting the medicine without money, and he and Vadim never kept the extra money they took from the gangsters for long.

After checking with every doctor in the city, Yafid came home empty-clawed. He sulked into the house he and Vadim built and sat down next to his friend. Vadim was sleeping quietly in his bed, cold and covered in sweat.

“I’m sorry, Vadim,” Yafid said. “I couldn’t get any medicine.”

Vadim didn’t move at all. Yafid poked him. Nothing.

“Vadim?” Yafid asked, worry taking over his voice. Vadim’s chest wasn’t rising.

“VADIM!”

Vadim was gone. Even if Yafid had gotten the medicine, Vadim hadn’t lasted long enough for Yafid to get back. He had died while his friend was out searching for something to save his life.

Yafid broke that day. No one helped him get medicine, gangsters murdered his friend and terrorized locals who didn’t have enough in their own lives to help anyone else. The city had become nothing more than a cancerous tumor, a blight on the world outside of it. Yafid changed that day.

That change put him on a collision course with destiny, one that would decide the fate of nations.