Clipped Wings

by Desrium

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Of words and bullets, which hurt more? The bullets. It wasn’t even a contest. What kind of question is that anyway?

“Consider this,” the other stallion began to say in a way that implied he had extensive experience making hypothetical situations and informed guesses about the savage ponies. Falcon Wing might have appreciated the tactical value it had if he wasn’t seething. “Raiders hung like an Ursa get their hooves on a pony as scrawny and defenseless as you. They want to get off as much as they want to inflict pain -- perhaps finding arousal in sadism -- and so project their sick sex games onto you, mares as well as stallions. With that in mind, it isn’t a stretch to think that finding you crying in a place like here at a time like now was evidence of… violation,” he concluded matter-of-factually.

“What the fuck,” Falcon said again in deadpan. The pony had a point, a point that disgusted, disturbed and terrified him all at the same time.

“This one’s worse at holding a conversation than me, Steiner,” Klaxon said to his apparent companion. How messed up did you have to be to completely ignore the plight of a pony so badly worn that they decided to hide in a dumpster in order to keep themselves alive, in favor of their lackluster responses?

“Indeed” the pony replied.

“So this is happening,” Falcon mused, staring dumbly at the figures.“The first ponies who haven’t tried to kill me yet… are criticizing my reaction to all of this. What the actual fuck?”

“So mister ‘I-got-captured-by-raiders-and-didn’t-get-butt-pumped’, I don’t suppose you know what happened to make such a mess out of this part of town?” Klaxon asked. Did the stallions not hear the part about the raiders taking off his wings?

“Other raiders got the jump on the ones who took me. Better armed. More skilled. A unicorn filly barely past her foal years chucked explosives into their camp,” Falcon Wing answered absentmindedly, trying to process this level of aloofness, this raw indifference.

“Well, shit. That explains the scorch marks and crater back there. Also means that a good haul of explosives went up in smoke,” Klaxon said, more to Steiner than Falcon Wing. That wasn’t meant to be a pun. At least, Falcon Wing didn’t pick up on anything that implied that was supposed to be a joke. He didn’t rule out the possibility though, from what he’d seen -- er, heard -- from the two ponies.

“Hmm, yes. Most unfortunate” Steiner replied with a nicker. “Those weapons could have proved useful if any had survived.”

“Uh,” Falcon found himself interrupting. “That filly? The one pulling those weapons? Yeah, she’s DEAD now,” he neighed with biting bitterness.

“That so?” Klaxon replied as if he were humoring the wingless pegasus. “Because I thought she’d be able to save herself with her fancy filly unicorn magic. Of course she’s dead. But she was also a raider by the sounds of things. No harm done. Better she die young than grow old to fuck up some good pony folk’s day,” the pony said.

Astounding. Absolutely astounding.

“As interesting as this conversation is -- and that is to say it is quite trivial when one realizes our situation,” Steiner started to say; “we should really get out of this alley, with you getting out of that disgusting trash heap first and foremost.”

“Well,” Falcon thought as he heeded the stallion’s words. Even though these ponies have revealed themselves to be morally ambiguous at best, they were a welcome alternative to enduring the Wastes on his own, especially since one of them was beckoning him to go with them. “At least one of them isn’t completely callous. Mostly, but not COMPLETELY”

He was still shaky on his hooves. Too much things to wrap his mind around at once greeted him too soon after he opened his eyes. For one, what would he have done if it were raiders that found him blubbering amidst the trash? “Nothing at all” was the answer to his self-imposed inquiry. They would overwhelm him with numbers even if he did attempt to fight back, as poorly as he was sure that would go. After that would be the almost ritualistic suffering. The other raider ponies preferred hitting him with their own hooves, reserving blades for their… amputations and their guns for… what they must have thought to be self-defense. What if other raiders did not share that ideal on torture? What if they utilized any tool capable of causing pain, slicing his hide shallowly so as to induce suffering but not fatally wound, breaking his bones with heavy blunt weapons and who knows what else. Steiner’s description of the other possibilities did not help things at all. Falcon’s stomach was already threatening to turn itself inside out without having his mind drift to the stallion’s words.

More than once, Falcon lagged behind the two older ponies, muscles stiffening with a steadily encroaching dread and anxiety. Between his boggled mind and the constant fear of ambush in the dark, the red blank flank found himself slipping into a paralysis. Steiner had fallen back from Klaxon’s side, walking beside Falcon and giving him a forceful nudge in the side whenever he started to slow, pulling his mind from the abyss. “It’s like this now,” Falcon thought, “Once the guns go off let’s see just how fast these legs can take me.” He snorted at that. Though he couldn’t see it in the dark, Steiner had raised a brow. He didn’t say anything though.

After a while of sneaking through the town and many nudges from Steiner, the three ponies left the raider infested Ponyville behind them, now near the more rural area at its outskirts, though not quite at Sweet Apple Acres. There were railways here. Quite some distance down the tracks was a building with a road meandering over dead and dry earth, connecting it back to the town. Even though it was on the outskirts of a raider hub, the two stallions had commandeered it and took it as their own. It was easy to do so because before they came across it, it was empty and on the cusp of caving in on itself. With their ownership however, it was no longer empty unless they went out and it was still just as liable to collapse.

At first the building was only a dark shadow on a darker backdrop, a silhouette no different than Klaxon and Steiner save for its size. When Falcon got closer…it was still just as dark. Except now he was able to distinguish a bit of its structural details. Two floors, triangular roof missing many shingles and in some parts, sporting gaping holes. Windows were broken, shot out or otherwise. There must have been a balcony extending over the front door in another time, because now its remnants were spilled across the floor, timbers blocking the front door.

“Was the mess always there?” Falcon asked.

“Yep,” was Klaxon’s reply.

“… So how do you get into your hideout if the front door is blocked off like that?” came Falcon’s next question. Instinctively he was looking up to the windows and holes in the roof and prepared to extend his wings. A sharp pain in one of the wing stubs broke the habitual response. ”Right, no wings” he remembered somberly.

He was answered by demonstration. The two ponies walked around to the building’s side. Falcon followed. Lo and behold: a dumpster. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said as Klaxon did a quick survey of their surroundings and then flipped the lid up.

“It’s clear,” he said. Steiner nodded and crawled into the dumpster, a muffled thump audible from inside. Falcon raised a brow. “Get in,” Klaxon nickered, “there are other ponies who can see just as well as me in the dark.”

Now it made sense why Klaxon was always at the front and why the group didn’t come across any other raiders as they departed. Klaxon, with his eyesight nothing short of amazing, was able to guide them away from trouble. Falcon nodded and walked up to the dumpster, looking inside. It was placed over an old cellar entrance with a large hole cut into the bottom. The cellar doors were opened up and into the empty container, though its exterior betrayed none of this. Through the doors was a mattress to land on. These ponies were shockingly aloof and insensitive… but they were damn clever. Falcon hopped into the dumpster and Klaxon followed thereafter, making sure to pull the lid down quietly before dropping into the cellar himself.