Because it is right

It was almost dusk, which was why the streets were emptying themselves as everypony was quickly seeking refuge from the darkness inside the comfort of their respective homes. The richer ponies would soon lit a few candles when the poorer would simply go to bed until the sun would eventually rise again the next morning.

Of course there were ponies who were ignoring the coming of the shadows, having their own reasons to brave the night outside, where it was cold and frightening.

One of them was a stallion, a quite normal one who was happily whistling while wandering seemingly aimlessly without a care in the world, before he laid his eyes onto a second pony who had stayed outside in spite of the harshness of the night for a reason that was both too obvious and very different form his own.
The stallion stopped whistling and his smile almost disappeared.

That particular stallion wasn’t one to believe in concepts like destiny or fate. Still, he couldn’t help but feel he hadn’t come there by pure accident. A small voice was whispering he should offer some help in a way or another.
Blindly following his instinct, he reached for his purse, searched into it before his hoof found a lone bit that remained.

“Here.” he told the second pony while giving the bit.

She didn’t react. Or to be more precise, she didn’t offer a reaction that anypony would have noticed. But the mare had in fact reacted showing surprise, gratitude, despair and shame all at the same time, each emotion neutralizing the other to result in what looked like a disinterested look.

“You’re welcome.” the stallion added, not noting how weird her reaction actually was.

But his instinct told him it wasn’t over. So he stayed and observed the mare through the twilight.

She was a white unicorn and even if she possessed an interesting beauty, she looked like so many other unicorns all around Equestria. Her pink mane attracted the stallion’s attention for a moment, but he couldn’t really find out why. He decided it was probably because it was a shame that so much dirt had come to dirty it. Then again, most beggars tended to get dirty pretty fast, so there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary there.
She was wearing a dress that the stallion first mistook for a blanket that was covering her whole body. It was made out of a rough fabric and was, itself, covered in dirt.

“You do know it’s going to be night very soon?” the stallion asked.

But she didn’t respond.

“So I take it you have the intention to just lay there all night…” he observed.

She turned her head a bit more to the right, to look even further away from him.

“Okay, that does it!” the stallion suddenly burst out with way more joy than anger. “What you need is to taste my famous super ultra secret soup! That will fix that low mood of yours.”

He had grabbed her with enthusiasm and forced her to stand.

“My name is mister Foster, but you can call me Foster and I’ll be your host tonight, how does it sound to you?” he asked with a big smile.

She hadn’t been expecting such a behavior at all and had no idea what to reply or how to even react.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Foster happily interpreted her silence. “Come on, or we will be late for dinner and the kids will wonder where I am!”

She would have protested, not because she was against a warm house to sleep in or a dinner, but because she had no idea what was suddenly happening, but the stallion suddenly stopped, which made her bump into him, then turned to her and said with a very serious look on his face:

“There is one thing however we need to settle before I can let you enter our home.”

Afraid, the mare tried to avoid his look and began to step back a little, but he followed each of her step by one of his own in her direction before she got caught against a wall.

“Tell me…” he whispered.

She swallowed her saliva.

“What’s your name?” he asked with a happy tone, suddenly wearing his big smile again.

The mare first realized she wasn’t in any danger of any kind and let out a sigh of relief. Still, the question was bugging her somehow…

“I…” she began with a deep but incredibly gentle voice. “I don’t have a name anymore.” she told him.

Foster couldn’t hide his surprise. Of course his first hypothesis should have been a case of amnesia. Or he could have imagined that the mare was hiding her name for whatever reason. It was also possible that she had had her name stolen from her out of some incredibly complicated story, the kind of which can only happen in magical land like Equestria.
But Foster was a very simple stallion who would rarely see much further than his own muzzle, so he took another approach entirely to the challenge.

“Well.” he began. “This is a problem. You see, I can’t let a pony whose name I ignore enter the home because of the children. We have to fix this right away!”

And then, to her surprise, he added:

“Let’s call you Bobby.”

A moment of silence passed.

A long, awkward moment.

And all that the mare found to reply was:

“Bobby?”

“You don’t like it!” noticed Foster. “Of course you don’t like it! What was I thinking? You are a mare, quite obviously, so a name like Bobby won’t do. Let me try again: Henry? Jean-Marc-Antoine? No, no, no… It won’t do either!”

And then, just as if struck by a lightening, he found what he had been searching for.

“Shia!” he shouted. “What do you say? Can I call you Shia?”

The mare wasn’t still certain to understand all that was happening, who that weird stallion was and why he was behaving in such a strange way. Still, even if she felt like it wasn’t the most proper of names, she kind of liked it.

“Perfect!” shouted Foster once again with energy. “Then Shia, you are more than welcome to stay with us for the night.”

The newly named Shia smiled, blushed even a bit before being caught by the hoof once again.

“No time to lose!” Foster told her. “Don’t forget your money.” he added, while giving her back the bit he had given her earlier. “Let’s go!”

And having said those last words, he rushed ahead, forcing the mare to trot behind him for a good twenty meters, around the corner, where Foster stopped and, pointing to a pretty big house, joyfully said:

“Here we are. Welcome to the orphanage!”