The Colthood of Steel Wing

Chapter II: House & Home (Part 1 of 2)

A week later, the family of now-five were on their way back home from the hospital, little Steel Wing wrapped tightly in light blue blankets and nestled in the crook of his mother's forelegs the entire way there as they rode in a cab-carriage pulled by a burly, orange-coated Stalliongradian. The ride from the hospital to their house would last about fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on the amount of cab-carriages on the streets of Stalliongrad. Iron Wing and Leaf Wisp were riding at either end of the large carriage seat while Neon Vice and Sweet Root sat in between them, the noonday sun beating down on them, but luckily they were shaded by the carriage's overhead awning. Iron kept his gaze towards his wife and newborn son, and Leaf watched her new son, who was watching the passion buildings go by them. By this point, his eyes had developed enough to see normal, and Steel Wing's blue eyes darted back and forth with each passing building, wonder in his eyes. Leaf let off a warm smiled at him, and she wondered what was going through his little head.

Those are big. Really big. Bigger than this thing. Steel's eyes momentarily darted to his mother, then back at the buildings.

"What's he thinking about?" Sweet Root chimed in, holding herself up by her forehooves on the seat, looking at her little half-brother, who was currently sucking on his hoof. "Do you know, Mom?"

Leaf Wisp chuckled at the question. "Probably nothing, sweetie. His mind is too underdeveloped for proper thinking." She adjusted the portion of the blanket that hooded Steel's head. "In fact, I doubt he'll be capable of thinking until he's a few month's old."

"Of that I have no doubt," Neon mumbled to himself. Since he had nothing to lean on, being a disadvantage of sitting in-between ponies, the teenage colt simply crossed his forelegs where he sat, staring straight ahead. Lucky for him, neither of the females to his right heard his comment. Iron, on the other hoof, did, but he decided to say nothing of it.

"Well, if newborn foals could think, what do you think he'd be thinking right now?" Sweet pressed. Since the day Steel was born, Sweet Root had been pestering her parents with endless questions, only some of which pertained to the newborn. Why does he sleep so much? Is he gonna' be this small all the time? Why does he keep playing with your hoof? Are we gonna' have to build a new room so the baby can sleep in it? (On that last one, Iron answered—to both of the foals' chagrins—that Sweet will be moving out of her room and into Neon's so they'll will have enough space to put all the baby supplies in.)

Leaf Wisp brought a hoof up to her chin. "Hmm... If newborns could think, then, I suppose he's thinking about the world around him."

"Like, how everything's so big?" Sweet asked.

"I'd say that's a definite possibility, yes," her mother answered.

The brown-coated filly took a seat. "I wonder if they think about only sleeping and eating all the time," she said, "'cause that's all they seem to do. Sleep, eat, and sleep some more."

"Sweet, we've gone over this," Iron rang in, looking over at the two mares, "infants need all that to grow more."

Sweet Root scratched the side of her head with a small hoof. "But, if they need to grow more even after they're born, why aren't they just born when they're fully grown."

"Because, doofus," Neon said, "if they did, do you have any idea how big a mare's stomach would get? They wouldn't be able to trot, at all. Because they'd be so big." The white colt shook his head. "Honestly, it's like you don't have any common sense in that head of yours."

"Neon," both Iron and Leaf growled.

Neon huffed, "Izvinite (I'm sorry)."

The ride took another few minutes, into which they entered the outer ring of Stalliongrad, which comprised most of the residential areas. The cab-carriage went along at a brisk pace, allowing the fares to absorb the familiar scenery. The farther out one was in the city limits, the smaller the residential buildings got. In the innermost ring, just outside the industrial zone, which was about twenty-five miles in diameter, apartment buildings were the sole type of accommodations. In the level just outside of that, resided the smaller-sized houses, fit for only housing single families. And it was in this level that the Wing family resided in.

The cab-carriage stopped in front of one of the simple houses. It was two stories total, with living room, kitchen, and dining room one the first floor, and all the bedroom and bathrooms on the top; standard for this variety of homes. It stood next to similar built, though differently colored homes. Theirs was an olive tint with a thatched roof, twin beds of browning tulips on either side of the green door at the front of the house. Leaf would have to fix those, being that taking care of plants and flowers was her special talent, trademarked by a small bush covered in daisies on her flank. The house itself wasn't very impressive aesthetically, but it had been the house Leaf lived in since her first marriage. It was the house her two first-borns were brought into, and she was looking forward to bringing in a third.

The five ponies dismounted the cab-carriage, Iron and Neon going around the back to pick up the Leaf's bags that she had with her during the birthing and recovery processes, all filled with her essentials.

While the two mares and the foal started for the house, the newborn sitting somewhat easily on his mother's back, Iron went to the burly cab driver.

"Naskol'ko (How much)?" he asked the orange stallion.

"Pyatnadtsat' bitov (Fifteen bits)," the driver replied, to which Iron promptly paid him from a small pack in the saddlebag across his muscled back. "Spasibo (Thank you)," the stallion added. "Khoroshego dnya, tovarishch (Have a nice day, comrade)."

"Vy takzhe (You too)." Iron watched the stallion canter off before he and Neon headed for the house.

"And so begins the many months of sleepless nights and crying foals," Neon grumbled, his head low to the ground as he trotted down the dirt path towards the door. "Again."

Iron glanced at his stepson somewhat apprehensively. "It can't be that bad."

Neon raised an amused eyebrow at him. "Listen, pal, I've been here long before you even met my mom. I was there after my sister was born. I know how bad it was, and how bad it will be with this new foal around."

Iron shrugged it off. He didn't want to believe this obviously grumpy colt, but some part of him began to wonder. How bad would it be? He thought about it many times before he decided to settle down and start a family of his own, and he eventually came to the conclusion that it wouldn't matter. Every parent has at least one sleepless night during the course of parenthood whenever it came to taking care of a foal. Right?

Iron tossed his head back as he and Neon reached the door. "Well then, so be it. I didn't jump into this thinking it was going to be as easy as blowing away thunderclouds." His wings responded with an automatic flap. "But you, mister," Iron said, staring down at the smaller unicorn, "are going to be helping out as much as possible as long as that foal needs taking care of."

The young colt's eyes went wide. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me!"

The gray pegasus only smirked. "You didn't honestly think I'd be the only stallion pulling his weight once that foal had been born, did you?"

Neon tried to find a reasonable answer to that, and ultimately failing that, scowled off to the side. "Sukin syn (Son of a bitch)," he muttered.

"Watch your language," Iron said, glowering.

"Izvinite (I'm sorry)," Neon replied, though the sarcasm didn't help as he brushed his way past the door. Giving another shake of his head and a sigh, Iron Wing followed.

So far, the newborn wasn't helping him with the teenager.

*

* 2 *

*

What is this place?

Baby Steel Wing's eyes darted back and forth across the living room after his mother placed him on the couch next to her. She and her daughter, who was sitting on the chair right beside the couch, watched the newborn absorb the new environment carefully. The blankets had been removed, cast aside on one side of the couch, so the only thing Steel had on were a pair of diapers, his oddly sizable wings flapping sometimes. His blue eyes carefully scanned the objects in the room.

One of the first things to register with him was that he was sitting on something very soft, and somewhat bouncy. The next was that something was standing right in front of the thing he was sitting on with four legs. It didn't seem to move at all, so it probably wasn't alive. Three other things we on the four-legged object: a small, thin stack of something with a picture of a pony on top, a see-through object with long, colorful stalks coming out from an opening, and a thicker stack of something, but no picture of a pony was on this one. He looked down. The thing he was sitting on wasn't alive or moving, either, unless he moved around, in which case there was a slight bounce on the cushiony surface. He then searched the walls. On several of them were very small ponies in brown squares and circles, and they weren't moving. Those must not be alive either.

His gaze swept around to the two mares sitting by him, who were both watching him with an amused glimmer in their eyes. One he recognized, the bigger of the two, as it was that one who he'd seen more often. The other was much smaller, and quite frankly, made a lot of noises out of that big opening and closing hole on the front of its head. They looked alike, for the most part, so he concluded that the smaller pony was much like the bigger pony. And he enjoyed the bigger creature's presence—why that was exactly, he did not know, but this creature made him feel safe—so, he will try and like the small pony.

Overall, the appearance of this room was greatly different to that of the hospital room he was brought up in a week previous. The floors were wooden; the walls were light yellow in hue; just colorful and lively.

He didn't like it.

Steel's not-so-tiny wings flapped again, anxiety creeping into the young thing's body. He wasn't used to this place, he'd never seen it before, therefor he didn't like. The newborn began to whimper, sliding back away from the edge of the couch, away from this strange new world. He wanted to go back to the big white room.

"Aw, poor sweetie," cooed Leaf Wisp, reaching over from where she sat on the couch. "Come here." She scooped the nervous foal into her caring forehooves, bringing him close to her chest. The foal instantly calmed down, but he was still unnerved by the new environment.

"What's wrong with him?" Sweet asked, leaning over the edge of her chair. "Doesn't he like his home?"

"Oh, he's probably just not used to this new environment," Leaf answered, rubbing the young colt's back. "It'll take a while, but this place will warm up to him soon enough." The foal's forehooves tried to wrap themselves around his mother's middle.

"How long will that take?"

Leaf sighed. "I don't know, honey. When I first brought Neon back home from the hospital, it took him about a month to get used to this place. You took maybe three or four weeks. We'll just have to wait and see with this one." The mother looked down at her newborn, kissing the top of his head.

"Do you think he'll take as long as Neon did?" Sweet continued. "Since he's a colt, and all, and I hear that colt's don't mature as fast as fillies, so he might even take longer than Neon!"

"I'm not sure, Sweet."

"What if he never gets used to this place?"

"He will get used to it, Sweet. I'm sure of that."

"But you just said—"

Steel whined, which, if translated, meant, Make the noises stop!

"Sweet!" Leaf said loudly, interrupting her daughter. "Please, we just got home. Can you hold off on the waterfall of questions for a while?"

Sweet, after a moment of modest silence, smiled sheepishly and lifted a hoof to the back of her head. "Prostite menya, Mamu (Forgive me, Mama)."

Leaf smiled warmly, and stretched a hoof out to caress he daughter's cheek. "Ne volnuytes' ob etom, solntse (Don't worry about it, sunshine). I know you're excited about having a new brother around, but all that excitement is going to wear this foal out as much as it'll wear you out."

"Da (Yes)," the filly responded, "but I hope that this brother is nicer than Neon." Sweet's ears drooped, and she looked down. "Ever since you became pregnant, Neon's been pretty... sucky as a brother."

Leaf was silent for a moment, and then patted firmly the seat next to her on the couch. Catching the message, the brown-coated filly hopped off the chair and leaped up right next to the elder mare.

"Don't you worry about Neon, sweetheart," her mother cooed. "When you were born, your older brother was a little sore about having the attention split up between you and him. But, eventually, he warmed up to you. Yes, it took a little time, but he realized that he liked you a lot." Leaf softly pat Steel's head, which was now swiveled around and looking at the larger filly. Sweet Root regarded him with childlike curiosity, reciprocated by the newborn. "He's just reliving some of that soreness right now, but he'll come around soon enough," the lemon yellow-maned earth pony continued, adding a wink to the other earth pony at the end. "Vy uvidite (You'll see)."