Selene had slept well enough, all things considered. His left wing was in a depressingly bad state, able to scoop only a tiny bit of air with each flap, far too little to hover in place let alone climb into the air. However, by holding himself in place with his left leg and flapping mostly with his right wing he was able to work his way up into a nearby tree, and spent the night curled among it's higher branches. When he woke up the next morning he almost made the horrible mistake of jumping down and expecting his wings to work, but stopped himself just before he jumped.

After testing his wing, and finding it just as useless as it had been the night before, he instead slid down the side of the tree using just his right wing as an air-brake while using the tree to hold himself level. He was able to hand surprisingly quietly, all things considered, and the mare had yet to wake.

She had spent the night cuddled in her cloak near the fire. At some point in the night it had gone out, and she didn't look like she had done terribly well beyond that point. Her lips had turned light blue, and she was shivering quite a bit. You'd think something so strong with magic would be able to keep herself warm: simple heat spells supposedly aren't that difficult.

Selene wasn't stupid: while she had scared the crap out of him last night, with the promise of his metal necktie killing him if he left her, he knew it was highly unlikely. It just wasn't realistic to keep that much energy pent up in such a small object without him being able to feel any heat, not to mention the complexities of maintaining an accurate trigger. In theory she could have the spell set up so if she didn't maintain it, it would activate, but how could she possibly keep that up if she couldn't even maintain a simple heat enchantment?

Selene stomped his hooves a few times as he approached her, seeing if that was enough to wake her. It wasn't: the gentle rise and fall of her side continued, as did her shivering. Selene sat a few feet away, and spent a few minutes looking around.

He was completely without any of his equipment or armor, but some of it was mixed with the mare's in a pile across the dead fire from where she lay. He spotted his compass, 10mm pistol and some of his ammo but his rifle, SMG, and his armor itself was missing, as was his maps, not that they would do any good: they were all of the Eastern half of Equestria, nearly 800 miles away. They were no longer near the road where the mare had knocked Selene out and where the Slavers corpses were likely still laying, but up the mountain a bit on what looked like a deer trail.

Selene looked back to the white unicorn mare, who had held him hostage just a few hours ago, now reduced to a shivering mess. I could just leave... This thing isn't actually going to do anything, and I'm sure I can get it off at some point... But, then I'd have an extremely powerful unicorn out to kill, or at least re-capture me... Killing her wouldn't be too hard, just crack her horn and she's a normal pony...

He couldn't bring himself to do it though. Not for any emotional reasons—I could gut her like a fish then sleep like a foal—but for pragmatic reasons. It seemed like keeping a hyper powerful Unicorn that had a vested interest in keeping him alive might be a good idea. If I ever feel like ditching or killing her, I'll have plenty of chances, and the protection she can offer while my feathers grow back is a good enough reason for now.

With his immediate future decided, he hopped up and shook her awake. "Good morning, dearest."

She snapped awake with an almost military swiftness, raising further questions in Selene's mind that he would have to ask at some point. She ignored him, quickly scanning the local area before finally looking up at him with a little grin. "Dearest? Has the Stockhoove syndrome set in already?"

"What?" Selene asked, stepping back as the unicorn tried to grab him with a hoof.

"You know, Stockhoove syndrome? It's when people fall in love with their kidnappers, darling." The mare batted her eyelashes at him for a moment, but was interrupted by violent shivers. "Brr! You know, you could help me up?"

"You could stop trashing my wings," Selene more stated than asked. Be careful... his mind warned him. Of course, he didn't listen.

"Hey, that was an accident... and I fixed it, as well as I could." She threw up her best pout face, and waved her hoof at him.

Fine. Guessing that she was going to try and cling to him for his warmth, Selene turned to put her on his right side, opisite of his wounded wing, and offered her a hoof.

Sure enough, she grabbed his hoof in both of hers, and jerked herself up, nearly pulling him over, then tried to wedge herself under his wing. Selene pulled his wing up before she could start ripping feathers out of it too, and kept it high away from her. After a moment of trying to borrow her way into his side, she looked up at his wing, then hopped up and bit the tip of his outermost primary, and with a flick of her head dragged his wing around her side.

"Hey!" Selene shouted, "be careful with my feathers, please!"

"Don't resist," she stated bluntly, rubbing the side of her head into his shoulder, still shivering slightly. "You silly Pegasus stallions, always so fragile."

Selene tried to let the insult wash over him, but he couldn't. His mind raced with ideas, ways of immediately getting back at the Unicorn. He settled on a somewhat direct approach: he started squeezing her with his wing. He intentionally started slowly, trying to trick her into thinking it was a sort of wing-hug.

She snuggled tighter into his side, twisting her shoulders back and forth in a way that rubbed her soft fur into his side and the sensitive underside of his wing. He nearly forgot what he was doing in the rush of sensation, but shook his head clear and focused. He brought his wing down and around her far side, reaching all the way down under her belly, then squeezed his wing closed around her with enough force to lift her off her hooves.

Wings may be fragile in some directions, but they are very strong in others. From this angle all the force he was putting into her belly and sides was using the bottom of his wing, in almost the same direction a hard pull out from a steep dive and the direction his bones and muscles were set up to deal with. It felt almost like flapping normally, but with his wing wrapped around soft fur instead of air.

When pulling out of dives he could reach accelerations of over six times standard surface gravity; this would put upwards of three times his normal body weight on each wing, and he could hold it rather easily for several seconds. Crushing the air out of the mares lungs and holding her slightly off the ground was rather trivial by comparison.

She squirmed around in the crushing embrace, and gave him a somewhat dirty look when he didn't put her down after a few moments. She slowly breathed out, and as her sides contracted Selene's wing followed, keeping the pressure up. As she tried to breath back in Selene's wing wouldn't let her, keeping her lungs squeezed half closed.

Her squirming slowly shifted to thrashing as she began to panic. She tried to speak, but she was only able to quietly mumble the last of her air away. Even after her lungs were squeezed empty her mouth kept moving as she tried desperately to speak, and she pawed at Selene's legs with her forehooves.

As her face began to flush red, contrasting brightly against her white fur, she suddenly stopped fighting, and lowered her head with her best sad pouting face. She held the pout-face as her flush slowly shifted to a darker red and her eyes began to water.

Selene cocked his head sideways, and flicked an ear at her. "I'm sorry? You need to speak up." He followed the comment by tightening his wing further, not that there was anything left to squeeze out of her.

Her pout face evaporated into a furious glare, and as her flush across her muzzle started to shift to a beautiful purple, she lowered her head further and her horn exploded into a swirling mass of dark purple energy.

...Oops... Selene expected to have his wing wrenched off of her with a near infinite magical force, probably damaging him in the process, or possibly something even worse, like being electrocuted or knocked unconscious again. Instead, the light sputtered and died as her focus failed. Huh... That's good to know.

She tried again, this time only able to raise a small glow before the light sputtered and died. She tired a third time to draw on her magic but she was not even able to generate a glow, just some small purple sparks that fell to the ground and dissipated. With her trump card failing her, she went still and slowly brought her eyes up to stare at Selene, defeated. Her face had flushed even darker than her deep blue eyes.

"You little Unicorns are awfully fragile... killed by a hug." The mare tried to struggle again at Selene's taunt, but she had become so weak she was easily controlled. "I'll miss you. Here lies... an annoying Unicorn. She lived a short life. She died by hug, delivered from a fragile stallion."

Selene could feel the muscles along her sides repeatedly tensing, fighting to draw air into her lungs, but he could easily overwhelm them. He gently lowered her to her hooves, and released her. She nearly fell as she staggered away from him, shaking violently as she doubled over in a coughing fit. As the color faded from her face, she looked back up at Selene, and narrowed her eyes.

As she galloped back over to his side, Selene tensed, mentally preparing himself for violent assault that was sure to provoke, but as she came up along side him she once again wedged herself underneath his wing. "Never call me a coward," she mumbled into his shoulder, as she squirmed into his side.

"Fair enough," Selene mumbled, trying to force himself to stop thinking about all of the horrible things she could do to him from a distance. "So... I believe I introduced myself already, before you decided to knock me out."

"No, you didn't," she mumbled without looking up at him. "You accused me of being a fan of you, then stared at me."

"Well... to be fair, you intentionally provoked that... Anyway! I'm Selene, Luna's only living descendant. I've lived my life in the Eastern Wasteland up until now, but I've just crossed the Irradiated Zone to explore the West, and you're the first pony I've come across that hasn't tried to kill me... right up until you tried to kill me."

"I never tried to kill you," the mare stated bluntly, giving him a demure, crooked, smile. "Unlike you..."

"Hey, I didn't even knock you out!"

"Because you couldn't," she goaded, running the tip of her muzzle up his heck to the base of his ear.

Selene suppressed the sharp flash of anger, forcing his expression and voice to stay neutral as he asked, "So what is your name?"

"Why, I'm gland you asked, darling—" her voice was cut off as Selene tensed his wing again, timing his squeeze immediately before she would take a breath, as her lungs were almost empty already. She reacted much faster this time, drawing an immense amount of power into her horn to prepare to cast something.

Selene reacted much faster too, clamping down with much more force than he had before. Rather than simply keeping the air out of her lungs, Selene squeezed with almost everything he had. Joints in his wing, as well as the Unicorns spine, began to pop, loudly, with little sharp cracks. He figured he could probably use a little more force before the tendons in his wings gave out, but he didn't want to break her ribs.

Her eyes bulged under the massive spike in pressure, and whatever spell she was preparing to cast was lost as the energy in her horn once again escaped her focus and dissipated into the air. With the spell lost, she tried a more direct action, and thrust her horn at Selene's head.

She telegraphed the attack, leaning her head well back before thrusting it forward, leaving Selene time to prepare. He leaned forward to catch the side of her horn across his forehead, rather than the sharp tip, and allowed his head to be pushed back to slowly dissipate the force. She tried the exact same movement again, but this time Selene caught her horn in his mouth.

He clamped down as hard as he could, and used her horn as leverage to force her head down. He then swept her legs out from under her with his own, and dropped her onto her side, still clutched and crushed under his wing as he knelt down beside her. She struggled to get her hooves back under her, but he easily held her head down, still holding her horn in his mouth. After few moments she stopped struggling, and relaxed in his embrace. He released her horn from his mouth, and loosened his wing just enough so she could take small breaths.

She sucked in as much air as she could in quick little gasps, eventually stabilizing into more normal although still labored breathing. She then muttered, with a small grin, "I'm still conscious, darling."

Selene wasn't quite sure how he should respond to this, so he decided to go with blunt. "I'm going to have to kill you, aren't I?"

She lazily hooked her forelegs around Selene's legs, and used them to pull herself tighter into his side. "I don't think you understand, darling. You can't."

Selene thought back to earlier in the morning, when he had contemplated shooting the Unicorn in her sleep. He thought about it again; about how much easier and simpler the morning would have been. If only I had known then. But he could still easily kill her now, it would just be a little more messy.

But another thought occurred to him instead. She thinks I care about her, which means she thinks she can control me. If she really means what she said about keeping me safe, I could really use her... He came to the same conclusion he had earlier in the morning: I can always just kill her later if this doesn't work out.

He eased the pressure off entirely now, simply leaving his wing draped across her under it's own weight. He did his best to look defeated, which honestly wasn't difficult: she may have been wrong about being safe from him, but she was going to gloat about it and rub it in his face anyway.

She did exactly that. "Oh, I was right, wasn't I!? The best slaves are the ones who self motivate." She twisted around to get her hooves under her, then slowly rose. Selene stood with her, dutifully keeping his wing tightly wrapped around her to ward off the cold. "Don't worry, we're going to get along wonderfully, darling. I'll show you all the sights, and be kind to you so long as you are deserving. I am a just master, after all."

"I'm not calling you that," Selene stated bluntly, already preparing to asphyxiate her again if she insisted too strongly.

She apparently felt his wing muscles tensing, and looked around in sudden fear.

Selene could see the mental struggle she was going through, and predicted it accurately. the cold or my mercy? I know me; I'd take the cold.

She came to a different conclusion, and looked back at him with a twisted smile. "It doesn't matter what we call each other, my dearest stallion. What matters is that we can trust each other."

"Then you can use my name."

"Oh, well then I get to chose what you call me, Selene?" she asked with a hopeful look.

"No."

"Oh," she mumbled, her ears drooping. "Well, I guess that means I can call you what I want, darling. You can't have everything all to yourself, you know."

Selene considered for a moment. ...I guess it couldn't hurt to at least ask. "What would you like me to call you?"

Her face lit up as a smile stretched all the way across her muzzle. "Oh, my, I'm so gland you'd care to ask. Well, lets see... you've made it clear you'd rather not refer to me as 'master,' and I admit it would be a little cruel to remind you of your status every time you speak to me.

"That's what this is for, after all," she added, flicking his metal collar. He had forgotten about it: she had done a good job fitting it, and he hardly felt it at all even when focusing on it.

"So," she continued, "I suppose you can use my name too. I'd rather something more endearing, like when you called me 'dearest' earlier. That was simply charming... but what makes that so special is that you chose too: asking you to would take the magic away, I'm afraid.

"I guess you can call me Neighbourhood."

Author's Note

Stockhoove syndrome is the ponified version of the real world Stalkholm Syndrome. Thank you Neighbourhood Fox (yes, the person Neighbourhood is directly based off of) for your contribution. You're becoming a real MLP fan... whether you want to or not...