Clipped Wings

by Desrium

Story One: Clipped Wings

Chapter One

The Wasteland is harsh. It does not restrain itself or pull its punches. Rather, it only puts on brass horseshoes and for every kick one must dodge, weave… or die.

He was young, but not too young. He wasn’t young enough to be called a foal and he wasn’t much of a stallion yet. His mane and tail was of a yellow color with streaks of orange strands. His coat would have been a rich apple red if it wasn’t filthy with dirt and grime, though it was once reddened further by his own blood. Now blackish streaks were left where it dried and caked up. He was a pegasus, a flying horse that was now forever unable to fly. Stubs remained where powerful wings had once been with striking feathers. It was for those wings he was named Falcon Wing and he, as his father put it 'was the last red phoenix in Equestria'.

His parents were killed late into his days as a colt. He was too young to remember much of it but the event left its scars, scars that he had mostly learned to hide from his fellow pegasi. While he didn’t show the trauma in his actions, his body showed the effect of the tragedy in the form of his barren flanks. Well into his young adult years and Falcon did not have a cutie mark. Now, wingless and alone far below the clouds that he once knew, Falcon Wing was certain he was never going to get one. What was a pegasus without their wings?

To throw salt in a figurative and…fairly literal wound, he was a Dashite; though the only reason he left the cover of clouds was to flee from his tormentors above. It made no difference however. Should he be caught -- and without his wings that was a very strong possibility -- he wouldn’t have to bother with a cutie mark ever again. There were many ways to forge the special images a pony acquires when they find their special talent. Having one seared into one’s coat and flesh was one of the more painful and socially damning ways.

Falcon hobbled through the deserted streets, lightheaded and aching. He had no idea where he was. He had no idea why he was attacked other than he was alone, young and unarmed. All in all, he was an easy target. The ones who robbed him of flight apparently had a more refined, malevolent sense of humor than others of their kind. Rather than kill the clearly helpless pony, they gave him medical aid, ceasing the bleeding of his wing stumps and -- painfully at that -- cleaning the wounds to prevent infection. Resources they could have used on themselves, spent for the sake of irony and Falcon knew that from the shadows, he was being watched. They were watching him stumble around with his head in a fog for their amusement. Falcon was used to flying through the clouds rather than above them. Except he wasn’t in excruciating agony then, could think straight…and still had his wings.

As he pathetically made his way down the street strewn with debris and boasting the crumbling husks of buildings on both sides, Falcon Wing, in the midst of his suffering, thought himself grossly undeserving of his name now. He was no fierce falcon and he was wingless. It was with these thoughts, he wondered just how long it would be before these sick raider bastards sprung on him again and finished him off.

Through his blurry vision, Falcon could make out the obstacles in his shambling path. Fallen lamp posts, the metal wagons overturned onto sidewalks, chunks of buildings spilling into the streets. Joy. Was it even worth the effort to carry on? To give the raiders the satisfaction of seeing him go through this obstacle course of civilization’s decay after being brutalized and crippled? “I wonder how they would feel if their entertainer just lay down and slept for a while,” he thought bitterly at the bottom of a mound of collapsed wooden timbers. He answered his own question, envisioning the raiders to stream out of their hideaways just as his underbelly reached the ground. They’d kick and beat him, shouting profanities and obscenities as they had before, complete with one of them shouting “Welcome to Ponyville faggot!”

Huh, that’s right. Ponyville, that’s where he was now if that charming little asshole was to be trusted, though there was no reason to take his word for it. Still, it would just be Falcon’s luck to be chased from the ever cloudy skies and then take refuge in the infamous raider settlement.

He cursed under his breath as he hauled himself up the hill of debris against his better judgment, but it was his judgment that got him in this horrible position in the first place. It was dark, very dark. Without the moon and the stars, the world of the landbound was gifted a nearly absolute blackness at night. He was panicked enough from the harrowing encounter with other pegasi… not raiders, not bandits, just… other pegasi. They were cruel and, as always, Falcon was an easy target. Just past adolescence and still a blank flank. And also an orphan. That somehow translated into name calling and physical abuse. It was only in hindsight did he consider them to be a much better alternative to… this. Unless they too decided to take his wings away, and Falcon heavily doubted they would be as willing to patch him up and send him on his miserable way.

He just acknowledged that the raiders, despite their sick thrills, did more 'good' for him than those of his own kind. It’s just that if he had taken the beating and the verbal barrage -- which he ended up experiencing a much worse rendition of regardless -- he might have the slight possibility of slinking back to his assigned caregivers and getting patched up by his medical pony, whom Falcon was well acquainted with after several other instances of this harsh treatment.

But no. He was practically stranded in the Wasteland, in Ponyville. The climb up and then down the mound had, as he expected, sapped his dwindling energy. Staying conscious was a losing battle. Now he seriously contemplated lying down, without his bitter thoughts. It was either that or letting himself drop when he finally did blackout. In both scenarios, Falcon foresaw his own death.

“So this is how it ends. Can’t exactly say it was a good trot but,” Falcon muttered to himself, looking to the ruins around him. “… considering the state of everything else, I really shouldn’t have expected any better…”

A small smile crept onto his snout just after he said that, and there was even less of a delay when his body dropped to the ground like a sack of lead.

Comments

[Doomande]

Okay first of all, it is so short! While that is not a bad thing when you think on how many big Fo:E works that are out there, does it mean that it dosn´t get the time it needs. I know that this is the first chapter, and they are always hard. The dilemma about how much you should tell or not tell, how many details there should be and what not else, so it is no biggie.

The second thing I want to say is show don´t tell. Out of the 6 paragraphs was only 2 of them showing what Falcon Wing was doing instead of lining up a line of facts like the 4 others. It would be so nice to read the moment when he get caught, or the scene when he loose his wings, because as of now does it not have the heavy impact that you would get by showing it, and that is rather sad when your whole story lies on a foundation of a wingless pegasus.

And now some more light hearted words. The idea about a wingless pegasus is a good one, and I think that it is the first time I sees it like this. There is a lot of stories where the pegasus only have one wing, either by birth defect or in some other way, the Wasteland is not the most friendly place after all. And I can´t wait to see what you do with the idea.

And your raiders is nicely written. It is the first time I read the idea that they use their resources to heal up their fun so it last longer. That little part was the thing that shined most in your story. So I hope that we are going to see more small details like those in the future