Clipped Wings

by Desrium

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

It's a wild, wild world out there. It may be harsh and unforgiving, but there is magic in friendship, and it makes the difference between having an adventure or enduring a hell of sunshine and rainbows.

When the two stepped out from the well forested area bordering Froggy Bottom Bog, they were tired and filthy, but managed to avoid getting hurt. Rather, Falcon Wing managed not to get hurt more whereas Alana was able to escape with only a few cuts and bruises to show for navigating the dangerous locale. The plants were bad enough with how they wanted to kill those who wandered into that place, one didn't even need to think about the animals that resided under the cover of the trees.

Or in the case of the hydra, towered above them.

The skies were tinged red and orange in the waning afternoon, the sun dipping down beyond the horizon with the last of its stubborn rays reaching over the land. The moon's silvery outline was already in the sky.

The colt and mare were on the other side of the river running past the rebuilt Ponyville, the former piles of rubble now respectable structures. The once raider hub looked like it could have been a pre-war settlement from afar. Directly across town was where Klaxon and Steiner used to live. A bit further off than that was the city, surrounded not by dead earth but green rolling pastures with trees and all.

Falcon Wing would have liked to pay the town a visit, to see Steiner's magical touch on the place, to see what had become of their old hideout. Were the tunnels still open, or did Steiner retract his magic and close them off?

"Maybe he extended them all the way to Hope... nah..."

"Zebra potion..." Falcon Wing said, directing his attention to Alana as they walked over to the clear running water, the bridge across the river visible several tens of yards upstream. "was it really worth everything we've gone through today?"

"We? You mean yourself. And if we're talking about you I'd say... no," Alana replied just as they reached the water. "Getting beat up in the late morning, waking up by noon, provoking a hydra, searching for a type of plant and nearly getting your butt bit off by another in the process," she continued thereafter, "they called it a fly trap, but I didn't think they meant flying pony trap!"

She placed her saddlebags down and slipped out of her barding before wading into the water. Falcon sat down and watched her, wanting to take a bath himself but not wanting to damage his wrappings.

"Just because it has wings doesn't mean it flies," Falcon Wing deadpanned, raising his stubs to emphasize his point, pushing up his cloak.

Alana snickered a bit and teased "Do you miss flying, or am I making you rise in other ways?" then she flipped her soaked mane over her, nearly splashing the red pony in the process.

"I guess I miss my wings, but there's no point in lamenting about it I suppose, and I've already had my sharing of rising when I had my run in with that crazy unicorn," Falcon Wing answered, missing the innuendos.

Alana sputtered a little at that but quickly became aware that the colt hadn't caught onto her ulterior meaning.

"The water's a bit shallow for you to be drowning, don't you agree?" Falcon Wing commented with a chuckle.

"Wow Falcon, even with those goggles -- you are really blind!" Alana said before ducking below the water.

She reappeared soon after, walking out of the river with her coat drooping and dripping. She stopped just off of the red colt's side before she shook, Falcon Wing throwing himself to the ground with his back to her so that his cloak kept him dry from the sudden shower.

"What's the matter, mister hero? Afraid of a little water?"

Falcon Wing turned his head and peeked out from under his hood. He had a confused look on his face. "Do I want to know why you decided to do that?" he inquired.

Alana chuckled. "You need a little wash,"

Falcon Wing frowned then nodded. "I really do. Can I take these bandages off?"

"Well, I'll need to redress your wounds regardless, so you might as well go take a dip to get the gunk off out of your fur."

Falcon Wing did not need to be told any more. He slipped off his saddlebags and Pipeye, laid his overcoat down in the grass then took off his bandoliers and vest. Alana undid the bandages; the cuts on his body were closed but they left unsightly pink markings with dark lines running down the middle and they would remain until his coat grew back. Another coating of healing bandages would speed that up, though.

Falcon Wing waded about in the water as the skies above went from bright orange and red to pink nearest the horizon which bled off into cool purples and blues.

The first signs of stars appeared in the sky. For some reason, it was a different sight for the wingless pegasus down on the surface. He was further away from the heavens and they in turn became more alluring to him, more entrancing.

It wasn't so much a case of "You don't know what you have until it's gone," as much as it was "You need to adjust your perspective to see the big picture."

And the night sky was a really big picture.

Before night befell Equestria in full, Falcon Wing left the river and shook himself dry. After being coated in his own dried blood, laying in a dumpster and sleeping on a worn bed-mat, being clean was a feeling like no other.

He flapped his wing stubs to shed the water from his feathers, the plumage on them making them look like comically small wings and Alana was not strong enough to suppress a snicker. The red colt didn't blame her, Klaxon and Steiner would have done worse. A quick snicker was nothing to him.

After being wrapped in bandages again and suiting up, the two walked along the river's edge and across the bridge into Ponyville. They'd find shelter, sleep the night away and hit the trail back to Glyphmark by morning. Falcon Wing's inner pony demanded to know what this potion was to validate all the trouble he -- and mostly him -- went through.

The streets of Ponyville were mostly cleared of rubble and the buildings were in vastly better condition than they were before -- which is not saying much in all truthfulness -- but the signs of 200 years of post apocalyptia were present etched into the concrete and asphalt of the town. At least the vulgarity of the raiders that occupied the town had been wiped clean. At least the raiders themselves had been cleaned off of the streets.

It was the start of a better Equestria.

The wingless pegasus had quite the shock when he and Alana came across hulking gray figures of muscle and claws. Alana informed him that they were Hellhounds, and that they were an endangered species in Equestria, and that many of those remaining were going to call Ponyville their home.

Falcon Wing remembered what they used to be: Diamond Dogs. There were a few books on them that he read... mostly because the Enclave had gone onto experimenting on their mutant descendants as he learned earlier.

He kept his wing stubs pasted to his sides as he walked through the streets with them. They seemed tolerant enough of the ponies in their midst but for some reason the red colt did not think they would appreciate the fact he was indeed a pegasus, one that lived in a pegasus stronghold under the Enclave at that.

Walking all the way across town was a bit of a trip, but compared to the sheer amount of trekking across the Wasteland the two had done over the course of several weeks it was but a stroll in a park. Quite literally so perhaps, as nothing tried to kill them by time they reached their destination.

That old building at the end of that meandering path, rebuilt. It was like looking back in time. That balcony that blocked the front door was back extending from the second floor again with struts of wood anchored into the ground adding extra support to the underside.

Steiner really didn't want it falling down again, it seemed.

Another new addition was a bit of Stable-Tec to the front door: a spell matrix terminal.

“Plug goggles into any spell matrix terminal.”

Falcon Wing did just that and before his eyes, lines of runic symbols and streams of energy danced. It was a psychedelic sight to behold but one that did not last too long.

Falcon Wing assumed Steiner added a unique identification spell function to the console and Klaxon helped him install it. If he was right -- and he had little reason to think he was wrong -- then the two stallions were expecting him to return to the place one day. "Magnificent bastards, the both of them," the red colt muttered with a smirk, pulling the cord from the terminal.

"What was that?" Alana asked, to which Falcon dismissed with a hoof wave.

"It's open," he said, turning the knob and pushing the door in. "apparently I was given the key before there was a door to open with it."

"Go figure," Alana replied with a shrug, then entered. Falcon walked in behind her and shut the door.

The interior of the once-collapsed building was sparse, but it was a roof over his head. To his left, he saw the stairs heading down to the cellar level. He cocked his head. Alana was off taking a look around the place, so he saw his opportunity to return to the "lair" of sorts. He turned on the Pipeye's headlamps and ventured down into the darkness, opened the cellar door and stepped in. The shelves remained but they were cleared out completely. The two stallions' bedroom was a similar sight. The books and their beds were nowhere to be seen. Even the small table and lamp was absent.

What remained however, was the "welcoming mat".

His bed, with a note on it.

Falcon Wing investigated, discerning that this one was not written by Steiner, but by Klaxon. His writing was sloppy, as if he were in a rush... or as if he couldn't contain himself while writing it. The latter was very... very likely.

"Dear Falcon Wing,

Damn, I would have thought you'd look for a more respectable place to score with Alana.

Sincerely,
Molasses"

Falcon Wing shook his head.

"Huh. So Klaxon's real name is Molasses? Molasses what? Molasses Sarsaparilla?"

Falcon Wing's heart nearly burst from his chest. His fur bristled. Composing himself, he managed to ask "... Weren't you just upstairs!?"

Comments

[ThunderBlitz]

OOOOOOHH. I like where this is going

[Warbalist]

This was a nice respite of a chapter.

One note that seemed off: "as if her were in a rush." You may want to see to that sentence.

[Desrium]

3790488

Oh the irony, given what directly preceded it.

It's funny when something you wrote in the past in a completely different context ends up becoming autobiographical, no?

EDIT

1/16 - 1/18/14

Went back into this story and fixed it up a bit. Corrections include proper dialogue format and punctuation! You know, those basic things this story sorely lacked! Dear lord how could I have left it like this for so long -- ahem. Fun fact, if I made a drinking game out of how many times a semicolon was used out of place I would probably be dead by alcohol poisoning by chapter ten. The first chapter ten, that is.

I know the chapter titles are confusing leave me alone.