Interlude: Hello, my name is Paul

“You know, I never got your name.” I broke the silence suddenly with my question. Looking at Paul, he seemed a little surprised by my inquiry.

“Paul,” he replied before taking a sip of the corn liquor.

“I meant your real name.”

He seemed to smile at that, giving me a mischievous stare. “That’s my real name now.”

“Oh, come on!” I mockingly threw my hands in the air, like a child begging his mother for one more candy. He just shook his head, clicking his tongue in a sarcastic admonition.

“No, no, no. You’ll have to earn that.” With that, he smiled at me and waggled his feathery eyebrows, inclining the back of his head toward me clearly stating what he meant by “deserve it.”

I sighed, “Dude, I am, like, naked right now. I don’t think now’s the appropriate time.”

Indeed, as I’d mentioned I was quite naked, and would be in my natural state if it weren’t for the large hostel towel around my waist. I’d probably spent about an hour in that shower, taking great care to enjoy every drop of hot water slash tea that graced my sore, dirty body. Now I was squeaky clean, just the way I liked it.

Paul hmm’d, scratching the underside of his beak. Gryphons didn’t really have chins, you know. But they did have quite the fluff on their necks and above their chest, just as feathers turned to fur.

He seemed to have come to the same conclusion as I. “You’re right. But that means no name for you until then.”

I held out my hands, faking a mask of terror. “Oooh, mister mysterious. So... mysterious!”

He deadpanned. “Hahaha. Funny. Doesn’t change the fact that you won’t get a name unless I get some good scratching.”

I just rolled my eyes. “Fine, get over here,” I said, scooting over to the very corner of my bed while patting the place where I’d been sitting. The jovial gryphon’s smile turned into a full-blown grin as he basically jumped across the room over to the indicated spot.

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

With regrets of ever having done this to him, now seeing as I was basically blackmailed to do it, I buried my hand into the dark beige feathers, their ends tipped with brown, at the back of his head. Paul’s eyes turned to heavens in pleasure as he whispered, to whatever god or gods might’ve been listening, “Thank you~u~”

“Thank me,” I grunted and made my way down his back. As I reached the point where his beige feathers turned to dark beige fur, and where his wings coincidentally grew from, he let out a long, deep moan.

“Yeah, no,” I pulled away from him, stomping into the bathroom to wash my hand and forearm. He hadn’t had a shower yet.

“Oh, come on!” It was his turn to yell out in frustration.

“No!” I called out, still in the bathroom. Hearing this, Paul moaned again, but this time not in pleasure. He probably plopped himself on my bed as I heard it creak sorrowfully under his weight. Great, it was probably dirty as hell now.

After feeling clean again, I returned to the room where the muttering gryphon was trying to scratch his back with his claws, and failing miserably.

“So, what about my reward?” I inquired at his silence.

He sighed deeply, before groaning, “It’s Sandquill Astraus.” He seemed to wither a little at the name.

“Sandquill Astraus? It’s, uh… nice, I guess.”

“It’s a horrible name! I mean, Sandquill? What kind of name is that?”

I just sat down on Paul’s bed as he was currently occupying mine. I just shrugged, propping myself with my elbows against my knees. “I don’t know, you tell me.”

Another sigh, another groan. “It’s the name dad gave me, and Astraus is my dad’s name. Jack is so much better, though. So is Paul. Anyway, he said he gave it to me because of the pony that had saved his life once. So, he gave me the pony’s name in his saviour’s honor. A pony name isn’t a good thing to have among orthodox gryphons, as it ironically bears no honor, though that is starting to change with more pony culture seeping out of their isolated country.”

I huffed. “It kind of fits, though, as you’re mostly different kinds of beige, which looks quite like sand. And why do you have your father’s name?”

“That’s how gryphons get their names. The first name is their given name, and their second name is their father’s first name. Or mother’s, if you’re a gryphoness.”

“Sounds reasonable,” I replied, not really knowing what else to say.

“But please, please, please, please, call me Paul. Sandquill Astraus is… too long; boring. Just like life back home. However, Paul is just… more exciting, like this whole journey.” By the time he finished, he was already back to his glowing self, arms shamelessly outstretched in a thousand gestures punctuating every word like an excited teen would.

I smiled at his antics, nodding once. “Will do, Paul.”

I could see his beak curl up. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

There was nary but silence.

The tea was hot, but not quite enough to scald my tongue. Hopefully, this herb mix would help with whatever was plaguing my life.

Alright, that was oh so heartwarming. My turn.

‘Your turn’?

Yes. You thought something back out there, the ‘Oh Paul, you have no idea’ thing.

Ah, that. Hoped you’d forget.

You can’t forget it, and thus I cannot either. I have a few tidbits, but I’d really love the whole picture.

You would, wouldn’t you. Fine, if you’ll leave me be then.

So, I remembered back to the village, the search, the fall, and everything thereafter until I woke up in the strangely modern hospital. What was up with the hospital anyway? They had so much ‘modern” stuff, yet these gryphons were still farming with ancient tools, living in homes made by their own hands; still fighting with swords.

Hmm, a most interesting experience. Though I had to laugh at some points. You’re a really lucky person, you know that?

“You’re talking with Dufus again, aren’t you?” Paul said more than asked. I looked at him and smiled.

“How did you know?”

“It shows,” he frowned in reply, and went back to lounging on his bed, the tankard on the nightstand beside him already empty. He still wasn’t happy about Dufus, and probably never would be.

Well, what about you?

What about me?

I don’t know. Name, maybe? Besides the Brown-Underwear-Inducing Name Syndrome you suffer from.

There was a wind whistling through the room, though I couldn’t really feel it, only hear it. Oh, wait, he was sighing again.

As I’d said, I was a normal, living mortal once. A unicorn, actually.

After saying that, he fell silent. Well? I asked.

Well, I’ll tell you more, if you first tell me something about your world. It looks interesting.

But you’ll tell me everything I want to know.

With some reluctance he rumbled, Fine.

Alright, brace yourself, there’s a lot.

One would wonder why I agreed so quickly. The truth was, what would he do with the knowledge? I didn’t know how to build weapons or computers. It’s not like I’d help advance any civilization or give this psychotic entity anything useful. It would only be pictures of things he’d never be able to build.

However, there were still things he didn’t need to know, so I started out slow, showing him some large cities, the buildings climbing high as if they were trying to reach the sky and claim it for themselves. I showed him the bustle and hustle of everyday hectic life. Cars were something he took a great interest in, saying something along the lines of ‘Oh, how easy it would make our lives. Too bad you don’t know how to make them.’

Then I gave him a tour of my house, paying close attention to architecture and more technology. Computers, TV, etc. though all of that only briskly. Just to be sure I still never showed him weapons of any kind. It was hard; trying to not think about something inherently makes you think about it, but luckily there was so much more to think about other than weapons that soon I even forgot about them myself.

We even began discussing the things I brought into the forefront of my thoughts. Like electricity. I didn’t pay much attention in Physics classes, so I couldn’t really explain it all that great, which only lead to a more passionate debate. I explained what we could do with electricity, and Dufus would say how they had magic do that. Magic to this world was basically what gas and electricity was to us. The ponies even supposedly had these factories where unicorns did nothing but feed specially cut crystals with their magical energy, which would then be multiplied by the crystals and sent out into towns nearby. Though that had been mostly replaced by factories built on something called Geysers—places where raw magical energy concentrated into pools.

But a world without magic… I can’t simply comprehend how you can live like that.

You don’t miss what you never tasted.

Yes. However, what I meant was that this world and its inhabitants, we were created by magic. Our souls are made from magic, partially at least. That gives us the powers we have. You humans, on the other hand, you seem to have souls laden with godly essence. Whatever god or gods created you must’ve have been very kind to give piece of themselves to create you. Our maker, whom we incidentally call The Maker, created us using the power of the Void—the source of magic in this world.

Well, I don’t really deal in any of that as an agnostic. Whatever makes people happy I guess and all that jazz.

You don’t believe? You have that godly essence though, which I assume other humans have as well, since I can’t feel anything else that would indicate what you were created from.

I scratched my head at that.

Eh. We have this theory on Earth. That we were created through something called evolution. Basically, what it means is that we evolved through complex means from the most basic of organisms over a really long-ass period of time. Maybe that’s why we supposedly have this god essence within us? Maybe it’s because we, like, created ourselves?

Dufus spat, Nonsense. You don’t create something from nothing. For some irrational reason, his answer really infuriated me.

By that logic everything has a beginning, that means even gods have a beginning. If they, however, created everything, then where do gods begin? What created them? And what created those who or what created gods? I could go on and on.

That’s all beyond a mortal’s comprehension, and we should not trouble ourselves with answers we can’t reach, much less comprehend. Besides, I could just as well argument that even if you evolved from something, the something still had to come from somewhere. However, let us end this unsolvable debate and rest for the night, just like your friend.

I looked at Paul, now seeing for the first time that he was already soundly asleep. Maybe I should’ve followed wake. Be that as it may, I had more questions.

Not yet. What’s your real name?

You really want to know everything, eh? Alright. Born and raised a Clover Field, though I had nothing in common with my name. My parents used to say their reasoning behind my name was the clover field behind our house, where clovers grew bunched together so thick you could practically roll in them as if on a bed, and do interesting things. Interesting, ecstatic things. Things like rolling around with your soulmate–

Fine, I get it. You were conceived on that god damned field.

You asked.

I asked what your name was, not where your parents made children.

Well, it wasn’t the only place. There was also the–

Please, no. I already had a foreign sex education back at Paul’s village thanks to his frisky parents.

Dufus laughed so hard he almost made me piss myself from laughter for him.

Oh, I’ve never seen someone as flexible in bed as her! And I’ve seen a lot more than you can imagine.

Oh damn, didn’t catch the image quite fast enough to let that moment of privacy stay private.

Dufus hmm’d at that. Yes, that could present a problem to you in the future. The thing is, it could be a problem for me, too. Your mind is quite fragile, and easily invadable by powers beyond your imagination. The only thing protecting you is how unique your mind is and me. I can do a lot of things to protect us from mind attacks, but there’s only so much I can do. You know what? I’ll train you later to create a fortress out of this shack you call your brain.

That’s… nice, I guess.

Yes, very nice. Now get some sleep finally, I am getting very tired myself. Unless you have more questions?

No, we’ll continue tomorrow.

I drank up the rest of the tea before paying a quick visit to the bathroom. We didn’t have any of those special herbs to clean my teeth, which could pose a problem in the future. Aching teeth were really annoying.

I went to the bathroom anyway, to at least rinse my mouth with water. There I almost stumbled across the pile of dirty clothes that survived the mountain assault. Not really feeling like walking around in dirty rags all day long, I made myself fill up the bathtub with water and throw the clothes in there. Using soap I washed it all the old way by scrubbing and rubbing. Once they were as clean as my bare hands could get them, I released the cap holding the water in and threw the wet clothes over the bathtub rim.

After all was said and done, I double checked that the door and window were locked before making my way over to the bed not claimed by the mighty gryphon, where I soon continued the blissful dreams of home and siblinghood.

Waking up is hard. Unless there’s someone screaming bloody murder and throwing burning poisoned knives at you, the human body has a tendency to take a couple of minutes to boot up. So, when you wake up in an unfamiliar place or hugging something or someone that shouldn’t be there, the brain often deems it a companion and makes you hug it. However, common sense soon takes over for those who have it and shit hits the fan.

“Paul, what are you doing in my bed?” Before I even realized what I was saying, I shot out of the bed in alarm, swatting his wing aside and falling out of the soft confines of forgotten dreams onto the hard floor of reality.

“Whaza?” He shook, throwing his head around in daze as I made love to the rough boards.

“God dammit Paul,” I groaned, rolling over onto my back whilst holding the spot of the growing pain on my forehead.

Paul looked over the bed and the pile of blanket where I used to be, batting his eyes from sleepiness. “Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay, Paul?” I barked at him. The suffering my head had to endure right now wasn’t making me a nice person. The infuriating gryphon, first a little apprehensive, but once seeing that I was in fact better than I claimed to be, gave me a smirk. “You look quite fine.”

After cooling down, maybe in part thanks to the cold floor, I closed my eyes and said, “Sorry. Yes, I guess I am okay.”

Paul suddenly ehm’d´. Immediately opening my eyes, I saw that he was also blushing slightly whilst raising an eyebrow at me.  Suddenly I felt very naked and dirty. Maybe the reason was because I was actually butt naked and dirty because the gryphon didn’t quite bathe last night. A piece of towel made itself known from under the blanket as if out of no where. Of course, my clothes were drying in the bathroom and I fell asleep wearing nary but the towel.

I yanked it off and slowly got up, Paul staring at me the entire time.

“Could you maybe not stare at my dong, Paul? It’s making me uncomfortable.” I said while levering a ‘Stop it bro’ look at him.

“It’s so… small.” He whispered in astonishment, though if real or fake I couldn’t tell. Laughter erupted somewhere in the deep reaches of my mind.

I was going to need a long cold shower as most of my body now suffered a third-degree burn. “F-fuck off,” I stammered and threw the towel into that bird mug of his, then promptly stormed off into the bathroom where I spent the next half an hour in silent misery.

After taking another shower, I dressed up into the naturally still wet clothes. Wearing them like that was quite uncomfortable, but necessary. Whatever, it was summer and the days were hot and sunny. A few minutes in the sun would dry them up.

Walking out of the bathroom, my gryphon friend was still hiccuping from prolonged laughter. Once seeing me, though, he immediately wiped the smile off his face – or at least tried, that is – and started, “Peter, I am so, so-”

“It never happened, Paul,” I interrupted him for good measure before going over to the bed and retrieving the towel. I neatly folded it up onto the nearest night stand, then made up the empty bed where Paul had slept for who knows how long before transitioning over to where I slept.

“How did we even fit in there? And what were you doing sleeping with me again, anyway?”

I asked while folding the blanket. It was the hostel’s property, but...

No, no stealing Peter. You didn’t fall that low.

Yet.

Ignoring the unsettling chill running down my spine, I turned to Paul. He looked away.

“Well?”

The gryphon looked up at me, though still averting his eyes. “I couldn’t fall asleep.”

I smiled at that, but still shook my head. “I am not your teddy bear.”

“Teddy bear?” He asked incredulous.

“Doesn’t matter. Why couldn’t you? What’s wrong?”

He hung his head low, now looking at his talons while fiddling with them. “I… I really miss them, Peter.”

My heart broke. He really did sound miserable. I walked over and sat next to him, patting him on the shoulder. Then I got an idea.

Yes, I noticed what looked like a postal office when we entered the town, Dufus decided to chirp in.

Great!

“I know what you should do. You should write a letter home. I noticed what looked like a post office when we entered this town. You know what, it’s a really great idea one way or another. They’re probably really worried since you ran off on them.”

Paul looked up at that sharply and asked with unbridled fear, “How do you know?” What, was he thinking I was about to send him back? Would he listen anyway?

With a knowing smile I answered, “It wasn’t that hard to figure out.” Then that smile turned serious. “Do they even know you went with me?”

He immediately nodded. “I left them a message.”

“Well, maybe you should send them a new one, don’t you think?”

Again, though after a moment, he nodded.

“It’s settled then, let’s get out of here.”

After packing up and getting a light breakfast that left us with almost no money whatsoever, we found ourselves on the sunny streets again. I took a deep breath, the smell of unwashed bodies filling my lungs. The sun was shining its damned scorching melody and hybrid birds walked and flew everywhere as far as the eye could see.

It was a beautiful day.