He said he would meet her at the bridge at eight.  It was half past when Hope sighed, giving in to the fact that yet another date had stood her up.

“What the hell is wrong with them all!?”  The setting sun gave no answer, nor did the babbling river below.  She bit her lip and looked into its crystal waters at her tiny, rippling reflection.  Why didn’t anypony like her?  Was her deformity really that grotesque?

The thought turned her head to her side, which was smooth, then to the other, which was covered by a brilliant teal wing.  She spread it half-heartedly, then closed it tight, turning away and squinching her eyes.  A grunt escaped her.  If he was that shallow, he wasn’t worth it anyways.

Toward home she trod, head haging low.  There was no reason why ponies should assume she was weird.  Anypony in their right mind should be able to understand that.  Hoping her thoughts to be true, she looked about at passers-by.  Some paid no attention, but others stared curiously, even one she recognized.

“Hey, High Strung!  You lookin’ at something?” she yelled at a stallion in a top hat and lapel.  He was clearly taken aback, his mouth falling agape before a shake of his head and a scowl as he stormed off.

Hope huffed.  What a pretentious prick.  They were all the same, one way or the other.  It was either pity or pranks, pranks like the stallion that had stood her up.  Pity or pranks.  Fear or indifference.  But never respect.

Respect was hard to come by nowadays in the thick of Manehattan, even for those considered “normal.”  Regardless, Hope kicked a rock to vent her frustration.  It bounced off the hoof of a stall-perusing mare, who turned in offense that turned to disgust upon seeing her.

Whatever had she said, Hope had no reason to listen and passed by without looking back.  It was probably just another insult, like always.  On second thought, she looked over her shoulder at the mare.  “You should—”

Not looking where she was going, Hope collided with a soft but firm object and fell to her haunches.  She shook her head and looked up to see a gryphon towering above her, eyes narrowed in rage.

“What the hell is wrong with you!?  Get your brain-dead, defective ass out of my sight!”

Hope reared just out of reach of a claw swipe and fell over backwards.  The gryphon glared death for a moment before stepping over her, muttering, “Useless filth.”

  She had had it.  First no date, and now this.  Tears welling in her eyes, she took off for home, not caring for who saw.  She slammed the door behind her and latched it before falling to pieces against it.  Crying felt like a weak thing to do, but it felt good.  It reminded her of Mother, whose bright smile she could now see, clear as day.  The rough wood of the door provided little comfort, but she remained against it, enjoying the discomfort; she shouldn’t want to cry.

Furthering that thought, she rolled her back against the door to dry her eyes with her hooves, though the room about her didn’t help.  A broken picture on a corner table.  A set of disused china on a life-weathered table.  They made her eyes, and then her body, gravitate toward a porcelain vase on a chipped fireplace.  Wistful-eyed, she traced a hoof down its side.  

“I’m home, mom.”

She saw her reflection in it.  A sunny Spring morning.  A lilac-filled garden.  She shut her eyes to wash them away, but they remained, vivid and painful.

Sighing, she walked to her bedroom and fell atop a threadbare mattress that lay thrown in the center.  Its lumps pressed into her chest, causing her to roll over and observe the stucco ceiling.

Knowing sleep was the best option, she sighed and awaited it sweet embrace.

---

The next day, Hope went through her normal routine.  She brushed her teeth, combed her mane, ate leftover oats, and was on her way to work, head empty of thought.  Through the bustling streets she walked, staring ahead so as to not give reason to think.  Life went faster that way.  It was as she stepped up to the door of Little Bite’s Bakery that she heard a familiar voice shout over the general din.

“Piss off!”

Hope turned her head to gaze down the street, where a gryphon scowled at a stallion laying in the heap of wood that was once a vegetable stall.  The stallion scrambled to his hooves before sprinting past Hope faster than she thought his hefty frame would allow.

Put off by such a display, Hope trotted toward the gryphon with every intent of telling him off.  Getting there, however, was much more difficult than she first anticipated, the streets being as crowded as they were.  When she caught up, the gryphon was inspecting the wares of a skittish-looking colt wearing a paperboy hat.  

Hope stopped not two hooves away from the gryphon.  Now standing tall beside him, she realized he was more than two heads taller than her.  He smelled musky, as if he hadn’t bathed in days.  “H-hey you.”

“What do you want?” he replied, not bothering to look up as he lifted a metal dish from its stand.  

A lump formed in her throat.  “I... I want you to stop bullying ponies.  You have no right to do that.”

“Is that so?”  He turned toward her, and a hint of surprise grew on his face, followed by the tiniest of smiles.  “And who says that?”

Hope blinked, her voice catching in her throat.  There was malice in his smile, but also curiosity.  She leaned back, “I...” then forward, puffing out her chest and putting on the bravest face she could, “I do.”

“Hah!”  The gryphon regarded the dish one last time before placing it in his saddlebags and walking away.  “Whatever.”

A breath that she didn’t know she had been holding escaped her.  Then she realized he had stolen the dish and looked to the colt, who looked puzzled as to what he should do.

Feeling sorry for him, she tossed a bit on the stall’s countertop, saying, “Sorry,” before rushing after the gryphon.  “What the hell was that for?”

“What was what?”

“What do you mean ‘what was what?’  You stole that dish.”

“No I didn’t.”

Hope stopped in her tracks.  “Are you serious?  I just watched you walk away with it.”

The gryphon turned his head, smiling slyly.  “You paid for it.”

“I... wha... Was all that just to get me to pay for your crap so you wouldn’t have to?”

“No, but it’s fun seeing your reaction regardless.”

Never before had Hope felt so toyed with.  She wanted to tackle him and grind his skull into the pavement.  “You’re—”

“Please, I’ve heard just about everything.”  The gryphon turned to walk away.

“I was going to say you’re a sad individual.”

The gryphon stopped, his head tilting back for a moment before turning.  His eyes met hers.  “I take that back.”  He looked aside, then shook his head and continued on his way.

Feeling that justice hadn’t been fully served, Hope trotted to keep pace alongside him.  It was then that she noticed the peculiar nature of his saddlebags.  They wrapped underneath his stomach, but there was another layer of what she realized to be cloth wrapping beneath it, the whole length of his body.

“Is there a reason you’re following me?”

“You’re an asshole.”

The gryphon chuckled.  “Now that one I’ve definitely heard before.  Why don’t you run along and do whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing.”  His eyes flashed.  “Or were you wanting to get back at me for yesterday?”

So he remembered her afterall.  Good.  “Maybe.”

“Oh, don’t give me that.  Why else would you waste your time following me around?”

“Maybe because I’m defective, useless filth.”

The gryphon chuckled.  “Maybe I was a little forthcoming.  I shouldn’t have called you useless.  After all, you did pay for my dish.”

Hope’s jaw dropped in offense.  “Oh, so I’m still defective?  Asshole really does suit you.”

“Oh, ma’am... you’re too kind.  But maybe you should work on your originality, as you already said that.”

“Oh, Celestia, why don’t you just shut up.  You’re just like everypony else I’ve ever met.  This world is full of assholes!”

“Hmm?  How so?”  He looked interested in being called run-of-the-mill.  It made her sick.

“Because ponies like you always take one look at me and think the same thing!”

“And what is that?”

“That I’m weird.  That I’m not good enough.  That I’m some sort of monster.”  She felt tears trying to form at her eyes, but she blinked them away before they could form.

“Well, I think you’re the most annoying pony alive, but I have no reason to think you’re weird.”

“What are you talking about?  You called me defective.”

“I call many ponies many things.”

“Yeah, you might as well tell them they’ll never be able to do what they want most in the world.”

“May I ask what you’re going on about?”

She stopped, on the verge of tears.  “My wing, you prick!  Don’t act like it wasn’t why you called me that.”

The gryphon cocked his head to look at her more closely.  “Huh,” was all he said before resuming his stroll.  “I hadn’t noticed that.  But I’ll keep it in mind for next time.”

Surprised, Hope blinked.  He didn’t know she only had one wing?  Curiosity overtook and compelled her forward.  She trotted alongside him for a moment in silence, glancing at him occasionally.  Clearly agitated, he looked ahead, ignoring her presence.

“So why’d you call me defective?”

He winced as if stabbed in the heart, then sighed.  “Because... as you were so keen to point out, I’m an asshole.”  He enunciated the last words, leaning toward her as he said them.

“But why defective?”

“Because I just did.”

“But why?”

“Because!”  He sighed.  “Because it was the first thing that came to mind.”

Though it was still an insult, Hope couldn’t help but smile.  He didn’t care that she had only one wing.  “What’s your name?”

“Why do you want to know?

“Because I just do.”  She hoped inverting his words would hit home, and the growl he suppressed said she indeed succeeded.  Unintentionally, her smile doubled, which caused him to roll his eyes.

“Tigoragan.”

“Tigoragan?  What kind of a name is that?”

He growled again.  “My name.  Now go away.”

“Well, mine’s Hope.”

“Thanks, I’ll remember to forget it as soon as possible.”

Not quite the response she expected.  But then again, he hardly wanted to speak let alone be anywhere near her.  Her thoughts jumped to the saddlebags and the cloth wrappings beneath.  She took a shot in the dark.  “So what’s with your saddlebags?”

“What about them?”

“What do you got in ‘em?  I can hear em clangin’ around.”

“Metal.”

Hope blinked.  “What?”

“Surely you heard me and can’t truly be this dim.”

She bit back the urge to call him a trumped-up pidgeon.  “What’s it for?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because I want to know.”

“Well, I’m not going to tell you.”

“Okay, then tell me what’s with the bandages.”

He turned, surprise apparent on his face.  “Wha-hmm... You’re an annoying little shit, aren’t you?”

Having gotten her hoof in the door, she smiled.  “And I will be until you tell me what’s in ‘em.”

He sighed, a mixture of resentment and admiration in the smile he tried to hide.  His mouth opened to speak, but he decided against it.

Anticipant, Hope waited for an answer.  Seeing that he had no intention of saying, she pried further, saying, “I’m waiting...”

“Oh, will you just shut up.”

“If you really don’t want to talk to me, then why haven’t you just flown off?”

At this, Tigoragan rounded on her, eyes ablaze.  Not until this moment had she felt any sense of danger, but seeing his figure towering far above her, she realized just how easily he could end her life with the twitch of a claw.

“Piss off!”

He stormed off, and Hope felt a pang of guilt shoot through her.  Those bandages.  She never meant to strike such a nerve.  There was no excuse not to apologize.  And with her goal in mind, she set off after him, but at a distance.

It wasn’t long before he arrived at a large building resembling a warehouse.  A bay window with chipping white paint sat to the side, curtains drawn.  When he slammed the door behind him, Hope looked up and down the street before crossing to knock.  She wanted to make sure there were plenty of witnesses around, just in case.

At the door, she rose a hoof, but paused.  Did she want to do this?  He did deserve it, after all.  What goes around comes around, as they say.  Regardless, the guilt seemed to have no intention of releasing its grasp until she went through with it, so she knocked.

It was a solid door, the echo of her knock almost nonexistent.  Unsure if it was loud enough, she knocked again.  It opened to reveal Tigoragan scowling as he had most of their prior conversation, which became more pronounced when he recognized her.

“What do you want?”

“I want to apologize for what I said back there.”  The urge to avert her eyes was strong, but she fought to keep contact with his.

The door slammed in her face.

Hope huffed.  She knocked again, determined he was going to accept her apology.  A minute passed with no answer, so she knocked again.  Still no answer.  She rolled her eyes, then began knocking, and didn’t stop until the door again opened.

“I don’t want your apology.”

“Well, I’m not leaving until you accept it.”

“Fine, I forgive you.”  He tried to slam the door shut, but Hope was expecting such.  In the nick of time, she stuck her hoof in the door and felt its weight try and bend her hoof in a way it was never meant to bend.  It didn’t work quite as painlessly as she had expected.  Her eyes watered as Tigoragan opened the door, anger clear in his face.

“What the hell do you want.”

Hope blinked away her tears.  “I want you to accept my apology.”

“I already did.  Now go away.”

“I want you to mean it.”

Tigoragan blinked once, then sighed.  “Fine.”  He started to close the door again.

“Wait.”

“Oh will you-what?”

The anger in his voice made her flinch and second-guess what she had to say, but the noise behind her gave her confidence.  “That’s it?”

“What’s it?”

“‘Fine?’  That’s it.”

“Yes.  Now for the last time, go away.”

The door slammed shut before she could put her foot in the way—not that she wanted to experience such pain again.  Content with her good deed, Hope turned for the bakery.  A step forward shot an unbearable pain up her hoof.  She winced.

Looking around, she saw a street sign that read “Canterbury St.,” meaning she was nearly three miles from home and two from work.  There was no way she could walk that far in such pain.  Unable to think of anything else, she hesitantly knocked on Tigoragan’s door.

A moment passed before the door cracked open, and Hope could see the fury boiling within the eye that peered out at her.  

Her blood ran cold.  “M-My... my hoof hurts.”

“And that’s my problem, why?”  His voice dripped with the desire to rip her limb from limb.

“Be... because you’re the one that slammed it in the door.”

“I’ve done worse things to ponies for less.”

To preempt his shutting it, she put her good hoof against the door.  Please, can I come in and bandage it?  It’ll only take a second.”

His eye narrowed.  A guttural snarl sent goosebumps up Hope’s legs, but the door began to swing with her touch.  “Touch anything and I’ll kill you.”

Not doubting his words, she nodded slowly and hobbled in.

A cobblestone floor stretched to all corners of the room.  An open staircase against the far wall led to a door on the second story.  Beneath it, a workbench wrapped the corner and stretched across the left wall, papers and cutting instruments and graphs covering every inch of it and its walls.  A sturdy, wooden table, twice the size of any she had ever seen, sat diagonally toward the room’s middle from the corner-cut workbench.  Heaps of scrap metal, a scale, Tigoragan’s saddlebags, and a scroll lay atop it, while a pile of leather scraps and rusty rotor cranks lay beside it, as if swept off to make room for a new project.

To the right, the ceiling hung low to make space for an upstairs room.  A large industrial furnace took up much of the back corner, its flames within providing the only light to that side of the room.  An anvil sat beside it, calipers and hammers and chisels and many other tools she didn’t know the names of lined atop it, awaiting their next duty.  A pile of yellow, disintegrating newspapers lay open in the front corner.

Hope mouthed a “wow” before a roll of bandages bounced off her head.  She scowled at Tigoragan, who was arranging the metal on the table in an order only he could understand.  Intrigued, Hope forwent her first aid and walked to his side.  “What are you making?”

“You said you’d only be a second.”  His eyes and claws danced among the scraps, calculating with mind while weighting with scale.

“I asked you what you were—”

“Sixteen... Seventeen... Eighteen...”

Hope huffed.  “You can’t honestly expect me to—”

I can.  And I will.  Wrap your hoof and be gone.”

Insulted, she stared at him for a moment before inspecting the graph the scraps surrounded.  It was a blueprint of a mechanical wing, long and powerful.  Hope gasped unintentionally, and her words came out breathlessly.  “You’re rebuilding your wings.”

“I said be gone!”

He turned to her, his beak twisted in a snarl, but she ignored the threat.  “What happened to them?”

His chest heaved to contain his rage, slowly winning the battle until he huffed and turned back to the blueprint.  “Someone took them from me.”

Hope gasped.  “Who could do such a thing?”

“Why do you care?”

She took a breath to answer, but stopped.  What right did she have to pry?  His business was his own, though she felt the need to extend sympathy.  Her need overpowered courtesy and curiosity.  She spread her single wing.

Tigoragan paused to glance her way, then silently resumed his work.

Expecting a response, Hope raised an eyebrow.  “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well who did this to you?”

“My brother.”

The answer struck her in the gut.  Not only had she expected him to continue stalling, but his answer came twice as much so.  “How... how could your brother do something like this to you?”

“You clearly know nothing of gryphon culture.”

Hope shuddered.  If gryphon culture was this barbaric, she was thankful for her ignorance.  “Why would your brother do something like this to you?”

“An eye for an eye.”  Finished with his calculations, he began tossing the scraps into his saddlebags.  “A wing for a wing.”

The muscles in Hope’s body pulled taught.  Her heart skipped a beat as he looked her dead in the eye.

“Move.”

Her body resisted the order.

“I said move.”

Slowly, her body relaxed just enough to slide out of his way.  

He walked to the furnace where he dropped his saddlebags, grabbed a pair of tongs, and opened the furnace.  Even from where she stood, Hope could feel the heat singe her coat.  One by one, he placed the scraps inside the forge.  They became red and white hot before he shut the door.  Almost immediately, the room became cool again as a light draft kissed away the sweat of her brow.

Tigoragan turned.  “You’re still here?”

Hope gulped.  “Yes.”

“Why?”  He strolled toward her, his head cocked to show only one eye that flashed with sinister curiosity.

She stepped back.  “B-because—”

“Because what?  You think I need some little pony to annoy me daily?  That I need help?  That—”

“Because you’re just like me!”

Tigoragan froze.  His face darkened.  “Get out.”

Hope took another step back.  “I-I didn’t mean—”

“Get out!”

Instnctively, she shielded her face from the tongs he threw.  Its searing heat blistered her fetlock on contact, and she raced around the table for the door, then home without looking back.

She burst through her front door and collapsed in a heap, wheezing and crying—but not from the pain in her hooves.  There was somepony out there just like her, in just as much pain.  It was a pain she knew all too well.  However, his must have been recent.  Her breathing subsiding, she gazed at the door at the thought of him.

Whether he knew it or not, he needed somepony.

Hope stood.  She looked back at Mother’s vase.  “I’ll make you proud, mom.”  With great effort, she hobbled out the door and back the way she came, brushing off the looks of passers-by.  Her ankle screamed for an end to the torture, but she pressed on.

Before the dark green door she eventually found herself.  She set her face with determination and tried the handle.  Surprised that he hadn’t locked the door, she paused a moment before regaining her courage and stepping through.

Tigoragan turned at from his workbench, face twisting in rage.  “You have five seconds to leave before I tear you to pieces.”  He walked toward her.  “One...”

Hope shied back, but then stood tall.

“Two...”

“I want to help.”

Head cocking back, Tigoragan paused.  “And why would you want to do such a thing?”

“Because I can understand why you don’t want to be like this.”

“Who in their right mind would?”

“I do.”

Tigoragan looked taken aback.  A screen seemed to lift from his visage, as if he saw a completely different pony standing before him.  “Why is that?”

Hope glanced at the floor, saying, “Because...” then back into his eyes, “Because I was born this way.  An I have no intention of changing that.”

She paused, waiting for him to answer.  When his only response was his intrigued stare, she continued, “My mother always raised me to be somepony special.  Being different didn’t mean I was lame, it meant I was special.  Nopony in the world is like me.”  She stretched out her wing and smiled sentimentally at it.  “I was special.  And if I could make it in this world...”  A small chuckle escaped her.  “Then there was hope in it.”

“Fine.”

Hope blinked, then looked up to see him walking toward the desk.

“If you want to help, make the feathers.”

He grabbed a cardboard box and carried it toward the furnace.  Assuming he wanted her to follow, she trotted up beside him.  Sure enough, the box he dropped to the floor clattered with many small metal objects inside.  His gaze was level.  “Surely you won’t find it difficult.”

Hope opened the box to see many oddly shaped pieces of metal.  They were all slender, but some were longer than others.  The largest part of them was flat, while a smaller part was bent at an angle and twisted sideways.  Among the hundreds of them were larger pieces, hinged at the base and with small slots running the inside of both arms, which tapered to needlepoints and looked to have a clamping mechanism on their very tips.  Feather shafts.

One plus one equals two.

She took a hinged piece in her mouth and then tried to grab one of the many bent pieces.  Given her circumstances with hooves, the latter proved difficult.  She managed to balance one in her hoof.  “Ha!”  Now, as she surmised, she needed to get it into a slot in a hindged length.  Moving her hoof toward her mouth, the piece slipped and fell into the box.

“If it is too hard a task for you, I’m sure I can manage myself.”

Hope glanced between him and the box.  It dawned on her that he gave her the job on purpose.  She scowled, hastily scooping another hoofful of bent pieces.  Nopony would beat her in a war of stubbornness if she had a say.

One.  Ten.  Fifty times she tried and failed to slip a piece into its slot.  Tigoragan chuckled, provoking a groan from Hope.  Clearly her method wasn’t working.  She tapped her hoof against her head.  She had to think outside the box.

Suddenly, she blinked.  Or on the box.

Taking the feather shaft from her mouth, she held its base against the lip of the box, the slotted length hanging over the box.  Her mouth free, she took a bent piece hovered it over the open feather shaft.  Like like it was her special talent, she slipped the flat end through a slot, where its bent end caught inside the shaft.  Hope smirked, proud she had found a method.

Progress went slowly but surely.  The feather took shape as each successive piece was added to the puzzle.  And when the last piece was securely in place, Hope clamped the two arms together.

“Owch!” she yelled at the sharp pain of a feather being yanked from her wing.  Before she could turn to rebuke him, Tigoragan held her feather beside the one she had made.  Barring length and the furnace’s warm light that flickered off the metal feather, the two looked nearly identical.

Hope gazed between them for what felt like hours.  How similar they were, yet so different.  She turned the feather in her hooves to watch the furnace light dance about, enamoured so by its lifelike perfection.

Mother would be proud.

“It’s beautiful...” she whispered.

“It’s one of one thousand,” Tigoragan said, taking it from her grasp, “and it took you ten times longer than I could have done myself.”

“What the hell?  Aren’t you gonna thank me?”

“I didn’t ask you to help.  I have no reason to.”  He walked back to the bench and resumed his work.  “Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.”

The breaths in Hope’s chest became short and forced as she glared at him.  Tears formed in her eyes.  “You ungrateful...”  She raced for the door.  Her hoof on the handle, she paused.  It looked just like the one in her house.  She looked over her shoulder at Tigoragan, who was absorbed in tinkering with his wing base.

No.

Hope wiped her eyes and returned to the box.  In the corner of her eye, she noticed him look up for a moment—only a moment—before again working with his own project as if he hadn’t.

She sat down and balanced another shaft on the box’s lip.  The loud hammering and scraping of his tools drew her eyes toward him.  If he truly didn’t want her to help, he would have thrown her out long ago.  She looked back at the shaft in her hoof and sighed away her frustration.  

Mother would be proud.