Advent of Victory

I stepped out of the bathroom with the warm air clashing against the coolness of the room causing anything nearby to instantly be covered in condensation. My coat was still warm and sleek with a thin layer of water sticking to it, but to my infinite wonder I had found a blow dryer in the bathroom this time around. The still drying fur clung to my frame in long swaths of straight snow-white hair. I practically sauntered over to where Deciduous was sitting on the couch reading some book that I had never seen before.

“You were right taking a shower first was a much better idea,” I said as I started to stretch. The popping of my stiff joints was ecstasy; even the one in my forelimbs that I couldn’t feel made me happy to hear. “Can you help me with the bandages.” I motioned to the pile of cloth on the table in front of him, and pulled his attention away from his reading as I did so.

“Sure,” he replied before sticking a card in the book to mark his place and setting it aside. I looked over the cover, and saw that it was written in that strange language that I couldn’t read one bit of.

Deciduous deftly collected a long length of cloth, and I stood still for him as he started to wrap it around me. My ribs were still really tender and knitting, which I reminded him of with a yelp as he pulled the bandages tight and strapped them in place with two metal clamps. “Sorry, but the doctor said that they need to be snug in order to keep everything in place,” he said, sheepishly backing away.

“Yea I know, but warn me next time won’t you. That hurts like a bitch,” I rubbed the two injured ribs lightly to try and work out some of the pain. The cloth was by no means smooth, and my claws accidentally stuck into it as I rubbed it making me spend two whole minutes trying to dislodge my paw without undoing the bandages. Finally freeing myself I sighed and carefully put my saddlebags on before turning back to the earth pony that was once again reading on the couch.

“I thought you said we needed to hurry,” I deadpanned, as I looked him over.

“That was when I thought you would practically be crawling there. For somepony with nerve damage in their paws you are doing remarkably well,” he replied as he put the book he was reading in his already ready saddlebags and strapped them on as well. He was right, I hadn’t expected to be up and moving about as easily as I was when I couldn’t even feel two of my limbs. Grabbing things was still extremely difficult, and I doubt I would be able to catch a ball for a long while, but movement was coming back to me really quickly.

“That is probably because of how amazing I am,” I said as I approached the door. I could practically see him rolling his eyes behind me as I opened the door.

“Sure, just keep telling yourself that.”

We exited the room for the last time with all of our supplies and belongings in tow. We walked down the short corridor to the set of stairs leading into the lobby, and were soon in front of the checkout desk. I told the pony working the desk that we would be taking off, and made to pay for the extra days we had spent in the room, but he waved me off. Apparently, heroes don’t have to pay for a room.

“Well that was nice of him,” Deciduous remarked as we exited the building.

The streets were bustling with ponies making repairs to all the damage that had been caused by the monster’s attack. Shacks and tents were set up along the road for ponies to sleep in while they were rebuilding, and more than one of the colorful equines could be seen scaling a building to repair roof damage. The sound of hammering and sawing filled the town and mixed well with the hurrying of the ponies running back and forth quickly working to rebuild after the disaster.

The fire had been swiftly put out after the snake had finally been taken down and dragged off. Apparently during the entire battle the ponies were already working hard to put out the blaze and save any from the flames. Slightly more than a dozen had died in the fire and discounting the dozen or so that the snake had eaten or killed the death toll was actually not very high. It seemed that ponies living this close to the frontier had at least some experience in dealing with disasters.

“Yea, I am sure he is making absolutely no profit from all the now homeless ponies that are staying at the inn, a regular Mother Teresa.”

“Who?” he asked confused.

“Don’t worry about it. How long do we have until the train arrives?” At that moment a large bell went off somewhere in the town, and chimed three times as if the universe just wanted to be convenient.

“Well it’s three now so we have another hour until it gets here,” Deciduous replied. “What are we going to do until then?”

“We still need to find Scarlet,” I said looking around, paying particular attention to the sky.

“Hey Vixen, I think I see her,” Deciduous said bringing my attention back to the ground.

“Where?”

“She is right there walking over to us with a smile.” He pointed to the red mare that was standing not ten feet away. Touché convenient universe, it is about time that I got some good luck.

“Hey Scarlet, we were just looking for you,” I said as I approached her with my own somewhat smaller smile. She had on the bags that I had seen her wearing before, which kept her cutie mark obscured. It occurred to me that I had never actually seen what it was. She had her bottles strapped around her frame with a Final Fantasy level of belts.

“That’s crazy I was looking for you too,” she said coming to a stop in front of me. “I heard you got out of the hospital.”

“Yea, just this morning. I was hoping to find you before we headed off on the next train out of town to give you the thousand bits.” I reached around in my saddlebags for the bag that I had put aside earlier before it hit me that it would be impossible for me to find it with that method. I craned my neck back and pulled the bag out with my teeth before tossing it to the mare that easily caught it.

“Well it looks like I’m leaving with you then doesn’t it,” she said as she tossed the bag into her bags.

“You really don’t have to do that,” I replied. I wasn’t just trying to be polite, I really didn’t want to add another companion to my list. Sure Scarlet seemed like a pretty cool mare, and was probably a great drinking buddy, but I was still trying to be inconspicuous and if my party kept growing that would be harder and harder to do.

“I thought we already went over this. I can at least stick around until you make it to Las Pegasus right? Come on it’s the least I can do,” she said as she continued to smile at me without a single worry in the world.

“…Fine,” I finally relented, “but only until we get to Las Pegasus I don’t want to be taking you out of your way or anything.”

She laughed for a moment before turning back to me. “My guild is stationed out of Las Pegasus so I was heading there anyways. These days there are plenty of monster running around Equestria that need hunting so it is easy enough for me to just tag along.”

Something prodding me in the side hit me the wrong was causing me to yelp before turning to look at Deciduous who had just poked me in the ribs. “Oh sorry, I completely forgot. I was going to tell you that we need to get to the train station and make sure that we arrive on time. I know you don’t want to stick around here longer than you need to.”

I stopped myself from growling at him and reigned in my emotions. He hadn’t meant to cause me pain so I could forgive him for it. “Okay, let get going then.” With that the three of us set out for the train station so that we could get out of this small destroyed town that had brought me so much pain.