Clipped Wings

by Desrium

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Do not lose a limb reaching for the past. You’ll need all of them to deal with the trials ahead.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” Falcon muttered to himself, fighting back tears. He was curled up on the bedding. “I didn’t mean to disrespect their remains like that but --“ he winced as the skull flashed in his mind, the wide holes where a pony’s eyes would be, no bottom jaw, pointed right at him. “…damn it, what were they even trying to do!” he exclaimed with a subdued whisper. “Trying to get into their basement to survive the spells!? Did they really think it would work!?”

“Boy, it isn’t a good sign when you start talking to yourself, holding onto your tail like that,” Klaxon commented from down the way with only a slightly biting edge to his voice. He had amazing eyesight AND hearing. The owl was a very fitting cutie mark.

Falcon was jolted back to his senses. How long was Klaxon awake? Was Steiner awake too? How long did they let him ramble to himself like that? The red colt groaned. These lapses in awareness were becoming an issue fast. Falcon got to his hooves and trotted a bit too hastily to the bronze colored stallion. “What?” Klaxon asked, facing broadside to Falcon. Prime bucking position if the wingless pegasus tried anything funny.

“Th-The…ske-skeleton…” Falcon replied shakily. “The skeleton…on the other side of the door…” he choked out, gesturing in its general direction. Klaxon followed where his hoof pointed.

“Oh hell, did you try to go upstairs!?” Klaxon blurted with a bit of alarm, turning back to Falcon and glaring daggers at him. “Didn’t you see that balcony? The entire building is only one mishap away from looking just like it!”

“I just wanted to see what time it was!” Falcon shot back, feeling the tears coming forth. Klaxon recoiled slightly, looking around awkwardly. Falcon said something else but it was just a jumble of sounds mixed with sobs.

Klaxon sighed and said “Look, kid… you… you aren’t drinking enough water for all that you waste crying and out here water is kind of a big deal --“ Falcon retorted through more teary eyed gibberish that Klaxon found both hilariously stupid and frustratingly annoying.

Steiner emerged from the doorway a few feet behind the bronze stallion. He, unlike Klaxon, was already fully equipped save for the battle saddle. “I like the sound of crying and Klaxon’s clumsy attempts to end it as much as anypony else but, really? So early in the day? Come on now...” Steiner said as he looked in their direction.

Klaxon was fuming. “Oh yeah? Why don’t you do something about him then!” he shot back, stepping to the side and shoving Falcon at Steiner in such a way that had the wingless pegasus spinning in place. He completed three and a half revolutions before his legs gave out from under him. He laid upright on the concrete, forward hooves over his face to hide his tears from the deep blue unicorn. His ears laid flat on his head.

Steiner regarded the pony on the floor before him for just under a minute before saying: “Well that isn’t pathetic at all. Tell me Klaxon, what started this whole outpouring of misery?”

“He tried going upstairs. Found a skeleton outside the door” the stallion replied.

“Why would he want to go upstairs? Surely he has enough sense to know that even we don’t go up there, lest we want the whole building to come down with us still in it,” Steiner nickered.

“I just wanted to know if it was still night time or if it was day!” Falcon finally managed to articulate his words properly.

It took a while but Falcon stopped crying about the long dead pony whose skeleton he had swept to the side unknowingly. He had seen in graphic detail a pony reduced to giblets in an explosion. That pony was a raider. As horrid as the scene was it did not bring forth such sadness and a sense he had done something vile. It was the filly who murdered the raider, not Falcon. It was another raider that made that filly a fire ball all her own, not Falcon. The pony beyond the door was not a raider yet Falcon had callously scattered their remains for the sake of looking at a bunch of old pictures.

The lamp was on, shedding its yellow light through the cellar.

The two stallions gave Falcon his rations for the day, a can of sweet potatoes and a bottle of water, mostly clear but something was off about it. Suddenly Klaxon’s talk about tears being a waste of water made sense. Wasting bodily fluid meant drinking more of that water and Falcon didn’t imagine it to be too healthy.

He ate the contents of the can and downed a third of the bottle with much vigor, thinking of something more pleasant as he did so. His victuals were far cry from what he ate back home. He sat in his corner of the cellar for a few minutes, paying his stomach extra attention. He had avoided vomiting so far, he would find it a cruel irony if he did so just after eating the first thing he had in hours. Thankfully his stomach held out and kept his food down. It was little, but Falcon knew he would have to make due and that it was better than nothing. He tried to put a positive spin on things. “Preservatives are tasty!” he called out to the others, getting a few grunts of approval from both of them as they ate. He tried not to think about the cause for his tears earlier.

A little later after “breakfast”, Falcon Wing was with Steiner as the unicorn went through the stash of things he and Klaxon amassed over their time together. Falcon Wing, as he was, provided no support to the two of them and if he were to stay with the two stallions that would have to change. Steiner’s magic swept over various objects on the shelves and opened drawers, the dark blue pony calculating what would be best suited for the young red colt. Falcon Wing sat behind him in silence, glancing around the room. He hadn’t noticed it before, but Steiner’s cutie mark was a dull green circle with blue swirls converging on the center of the circle, where a cyan ring surrounded a red spot that had some strange runic symbol on it. “How does a pony get a cutie mark like that?” he thought but didn’t voice his question. Instead he asked, hoping that he wasn’t distracting Steiner, “Your horn… will grow back, right? If you wanted you could just poof it back right now?”

He paused to consider his words. That was just too weird.

“I don’t know. I’m not too much of a healer and even then, the way I lost my horn…” Steiner replied absentmindedly, catching himself before he shared more than he’d like. “Probably not,” he concluded tactfully. Falcon’s ears drooped, his earlier hope beginning to waver. He had his doubts but pressed on anyway.

“Is it possible that you can fix my wings? Regrow them?” he inquired with trepidation. He heard Steiner sigh.

“Not a healer, and… even if I was… it’s a bit too late for you,” he said. Falcon’s heart divebombed into a pit and got stuck there. Steiner was all too willing to explain this, however.

“If I was a healer, I would have probably used a healing potion, maybe an extra strength one then used a healing spell to make sure your wings reformed properly. Those raiders nipped that plan in the bud, though. They patched up the wounds but didn’t take any measure to ensure they didn’t close up…” Steiner said slowly and clearly. Falcon looked to his wing stubs, the first signs of a coat growing over the pink flesh visible. He was on the verge of wasting more water. “…and since they healed over like that they effectively cut your wings off from any magic assisted healing --“ he stopped speaking when he caught his unfortunate choice of words and quickly added “-- no pun intended”

“So…that’s it. I might as well be an earth pony with…with…” Falcon started to say, closing his eyes tightly as he tried to describe what remained of his wings. Damn it all! He stomped his fore hooves in a stubborn refusal to cry anymore. Steiner was right, he was being pathetic. There were other ponies dying outside; he was just lucky to be alive, even if it meant he was probably unable to fly ever again.

“Yes,” Steiner said, looking back at the distressed colt. “But even without wings, you are still more than an earth pony. Sure, you’re lacking now, but in time I believe you can become something… amazing.”

Falcon’s sorrow melted away and he was left awestruck. Steiner said something… hopeful.