Cartography of War

by Daetrin

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Griffons, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Original Character
Length: 82145

A tiny slice of the great gryphon-pony war.

The war touched everypony, even those far from the fighting. Compass Rose was affected more than most when gryphons appeared far behind the front lines, and the aftermath left her unwillingly in the company of an enemy soldier.

Set in the same universe as Off The Edge Of The Map, Apotheosis, and Triptych.

Editing by Kaorin.
Spanish translation by SPANIARD KIWI available here.

Published 2014-02-26 03:40:06 UTC
Last updated 2015-06-28 01:51:28 UTC

Pack Up

There weren’t supposed to be gryphons here.

That was the only thing she could think of when she stumbled into the carnage that was all that remained of the camp. They were hundreds of miles from the front, and not even soldiers. They were just a survey team, plotting additional routes for the new trains and supply lines. But that, it seemed, hadn’t spared them.

Her hooves carried her hesitantly into camp, her eyes shying away from the various splashes of red. Instead, she saw only faces. Golden Glimmer, muzzle frozen into the silly grin he wore just before he unleashed a particularly bad pun. Mercy White, calm and serene as ever, eyes closed as if she were just napping. She nearly tripped over poor Sharp Eye’s corpse, his precious bow shattered by the same swipe that had cut him nearly in two, and stopped, swaying, blinking away the tears clouding her vision. Her stomach heaved, and she took several steps away to take care of business, then sat down somewhere clean for a good cry.

She stopped herself soon enough. She wasn’t a soldier, but she was a member of the Equestrian Guard, by Celestia, and she had to get ahold of herself. If gryphons had somehow penetrated this far then someone needed to be told, and she was the only one to do it. She forced herself to look at the ruined campsite again.

The fight hadn’t been entirely one-sided. She had no idea why the gryphons would leave their dead behind, but there were four of their corpses to match the five pony ones. Two had Sharp Eye’s arrows buried in them, one was twisted in such a way that suggested Scarlet Shimmer had decided to use her formidable telekinesis for offense. And one…

She frowned, stepping closer out of morbid curiosity. His wing and side had been ripped to bloody tatters by gryphon claws, not by anything pony. Despite herself, her muzzle twisted in puzzlement. “What could have happened?”

The gryphon’s eyes snapped open.

She squealed and backpedaled, but even injured as he was, he was faster than she could have believed. He had her pinned to the ground, talons at her throat, without her being aware of the transition. “Who are you?” He growled, his Equestrian heavily accented but understandable. “Where did you come from?”

“I...I’m Compass Rose.” She swallowed, painfully aware of the razor sharp talons pressing against her hide. “And this is our camp! Mine. Was.” She corrected herself twice, not bothering to hide the bitterness in her voice. “Until you monsters came.”

He lifted his head, looking around as if for the first time. His eyes moved in short jerks, focusing with a predator’s acuity on the scattered, destroyed remnants, the tents and corpses. Rose become aware of an unpleasant sticky wetness dripping into her coat and shivered in disgust.

“You’re bleeding on me.” It simply slipped out, so far past the edge of panic that she could only focus on a problem she actually knew how to solve.

The gryphon snapped his head down to look at her again then back along himself where fresh red blood was flowing steadily from the deep gouges in his hide. “So I am,” he said with preposterous calmness. He released her, stepping back and surveying the camp ruins. She rubbed her throat with a hoof as she watched him limp his way over to Mercy White’s body and start picking through her saddlebags.

“Stop it!” Rose dashed after him, surprising him enough that he had to fend her off with a grunt, holding her at arm’s length. “Leave her alone! Haven’t you done enough?”

“She’s not going to be using these supplies,” he said reasonably. “Are you going to let me stitch myself or will I have to tie you up?”

“You wouldn’t!” Rose wished that her telekinesis was good for more than a few light objects, or her spells more use than pathfinding. There wasn’t much she could do other than annoy him.

He lifted his eyebrows at her and she turned away with a scowl that turned into a shudder. She rubbed her neck again, still feeling those talons against her hide, then reached down to try and wipe the blood off her coat. She only succeeded in getting her hoof bloody, and she scrubbed it frantically against the grass. Rose wasn’t at all sure why he hadn’t killed her already. The deaths of the rest of her small herd proved that it certainly wasn’t for the sake of mercy.

She wasn’t going to give him the chance to change his mind. She heard a grunt, and glanced back to see him awkwardly plying a needle on his own flesh. The sight made her shudder again and she picked herself up, making her way over to the crumpled remains of her tent. The compass and sextant were still intact, thankfully, and most of her maps. She stowed them in her saddlebags, already half-full from the provisions she’d been gathering, and paused to whisper a prayer to Celestia for the dead. There was no time for a proper burial.

She’d gotten three paces out of the circle of tents before the gryphon’s voice stopped her.

“Where do you think you are going?”

Rose looked back at him. He’d managed to pack the worst of the gashes, though given he hadn’t properly washed out the wounds she doubted it would amount to much. “Home,” she said defiantly. “Not like I have my team anymore, is it?”

He shook his head slowly. “I am afraid not,” he said. “Not while I am grounded, anyway. You’d have the Home Guard on me in no time.”

“So what are you going to do? Kill me?” It came out with more quaver than she’d intended.

“I’d rather not.”

“Why not? You killed everyone else!” She gestured angrily at the ruined campsite.

His eyes flashed with enough anger that she took a step back, but the anger wasn’t entirely directed at her. “I did not. There should not have been any killing. You are not soldiers. It is not right.”

“Maybe we weren’t soldiers, but we still got four of you!” She shot back, jabbing her hoof at the gryphon corpses.

“Tch.” He clacked his beak. “Three, and they were careless. So was I.” He rubbed his face with his talons, looking very tired all of a sudden. “If I had been paying more attention, none of this would have happened. I am sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Her jaw worked in inarticulate rage. Finally she stomped her hoof. “Tell that to Golden Glimmer. He has two foals at home! Or tell Scarlet Shimmer, or Sky Shadow or Sharp Eye or Mercy White! Tell them you’re sorry! Oh wait, you can’t. They’re dead.”

“It is the nature of war,” he said, unmoved. “I can regret what’s been done, but I can’t undo it. Can you?”

She spluttered and then turned and stomped away, muttering to herself. He must be insane, trying to turn all this on her.

He didn’t let her get far. Again she didn’t even notice him moving, even from all the way across the camp, but for a second time she found herself stopped with his talons pressed against her neck. “Rose,” he said. “I cannot let you go. You know that. I do not want to hurt you.”

“So what do you want me to do?” She tried to pull away from the razors at her throat and found herself pressing against his bloody side, which wasn’t much improvement. “Just surrender?”

“It would be nice,” he said. “But then, you are not a soldier, are you?” He released her and turned her around, looking down at her. “I take charge of you as my prisoner of war,” he said. “Your person and possessions are sacrosanct, within reason, and your life is protected by my honor.”

“You gryphons are insane!” She gawked at him. “You can’t just...declare that!”

“I could hobble you and drag you around on a lead,” he said. “I’d rather not, and you’d be undoing it every ten minutes with your horn, but that’s the next step.”

“I won’t do it.” She stamped her hooves. “I’m not cooperating with a...a butcher.” It was an epithet that they’d only learned from the gryphons a few years ago, and while she didn’t know how much it mattered to him it was the worst thing she could think of to call him.

“Rose,” he said, his voice heavy with a pain that chilled her bones. “I would rather let you go. But I cannot fly, so I cannot risk it. If I must kill you, then I shall, but I would take no satisfaction in it.”

“You could surrender,” she said, trying to sidestep the chilling certainty his words had instilled in her.

“Hmph.” He studied his talons. They were stained with blood - his blood, not the blood of any pony. “It would be tempting, but I was not felled by any of you. By one of my own, the moment we approached your camp. That treason must be reported.” He closed his eyes briefly, his beak clacking in some purely gryphonic expression. “She must be told.”

His eyes opened again. “Will you behave?”

She was too certain that he was deadly serious about his willingness to kill to give a glib reply. “For now,” she said grudgingly.

He clacked his beak again. “Of course. It is the first duty of any prisoner to escape.” He took a step back. “Gather your supplies. We’re headed for the coast as soon as I finish this.”

“No.”

“No?” He raised his eyebrows at her.

“We’re going to take care of them properly first.” She waved at the bodies scattered throughout the campsite. “It’s not like there’s any rush.” Not with how far away the coast was, even on a direct path. She wondered if he had any idea what the trek would be like on hoof, given how used to flying he was.

He looked from her to the corpses and back again, then sighed. “Very well,” he said, and went to retrieve the medical supplies he’d spilled.

Rose dithered for a moment. She hadn’t thought of any other supplies than the ones she’d already retrieved. But eventually she began a slow circuit, the sticky, half-dried blood in her coat tugging uncomfortably as she visited each of her friends in turn. She muttered apologies, promises...it seemed unreal to her, and the gryphon’s challenge kept sticking in her head. There was nothing she could have done if she’d been there when it happened, but she still felt she should have been.

She collected small things. Scarlet Shimmer’s hideous crochet, a half-finished scarf in her colors. Sharp Eye’s flint arrowhead that he wore about his neck. A keepsake, a remembrance from each of them to pass on to their families and loved ones. Golden Glimmer’s journal, which she’d promised to never read, Mercy White’s charm bracelet, Sky Shadow’s sketchbook. By the time she finished, she felt very alone.

The gryphon was still trying to patch himself up. He couldn’t properly reach most of the wounds, and the stitching was ragged and uneven. He’d packed himself properly with gauze and even as she watched he poured antiseptic liberally over the area he was working on. The numb feeling in her gut turned into a gnawing unease until finally she gingerly stepped over to him. “Let me do it.”

He blinked at her and clacked his beak. “Should you be helping me? I might bleed out, or catch infection and die and then you’d be free to leave.”

“Is that likely?”

“No.” His fierce golden eyes studied her. “But there is always hope.”

Rose had no idea how to take that. Indeed, she wondered if he hadn’t cracked his head a bit too hard at some point. He held up the needle and thread and she took it, horn glowing as she bent to the task.

It was just like any other needlework, she told herself, though she hadn’t touched her sewing since the war had started. Mercy White had ensured they all knew at least a little first aid, but this was the first time she’d been up close to an actual wound of any significance. It was strangely clinical, and far less nausea-inducing than she’d been afraid of. She replaced his rough stitching with her own fine and precise work, half-wondering why she was bothering. But only half. Regardless of what he was, she wasn’t the sort of pony to let someone sit and suffer.

The gouges were deep at the base of his wing, far too deep to be stitched. That was packed with gauze, but probably needed something more. They trailed off into something shallower down his flank, a tattered crisscross of frantic clawing that seemed like an almost hopeless task to try and fix. But in the end, it didn’t take long at all. Halfway through she became aware of him watching her, but she merely bit her lip and focused on patching up the snowy white hide.

When she finished he wrapped the entire mess in white linen, a few turns around his barrel. “Thank you,” he said gravely.

She nodded silently, not entirely comfortable with her complicity in the matter. He heaved himself to his feet and she backed away, whatever ephemeral understanding that had let her approach him without a distinct knife edge of fear evaporating.

“Where do you want to dig the graves?” He asked, and the knife edge cut.

She put her hoof to her throat, where she could still feel the razor edges of his talons, and took a deep breath. “Over there.” She pointed at the far edge of the clearing and went to find a shovel.

The gryphon used Sharp Eye’s. While fine for a pony, it was not meant for someone with talons instead of hooves. But he plied it awkwardly and uncomplainingly, keeping pace with her without any apparent effort. And in fact did a neater job. She wondered how many graves he’d dug as a soldier.

When they went to wrap the bodies in the remains of the tents, the gryphon’s stomach gurgled audibly. She glanced over and found him looking wistfully at Sky Shadow’s body.

“Don’t you dare!”

“They are just meat now,” he said. “They cannot possibly mind.”

“But you can’t...I can’t...just…” It was impossible to encapsulate the wrongness inherent in letting someone eat her friend. Something of it in her expression must have conveyed it though, because he heaved a sigh.

“Very well. But I expect no complaints from you when I hunt.”

“Of course not,” she said faintly, still reeling. She just hoped he didn’t intend to hunt ponies. Not that there’d be many out here, the portion of her brain still capable of logic pointed out. Other than her.

It was only when she’d lowered the last body that she realized there were only five. The gryphons had simply been left where they lay. “What about your…”

“I will take care of them,” he said, his voice holding more snap than she had expected. “You take care of yours.”

Stung, she turned her back on him and approached the graves. They seemed pitifully small for what they represented. Years of life and five good friends. She already missed Golden Glimmer’s easy laugh, and Mercy White’s voice lifted in soft song or at least a hum as she went about her work.

“My dear friends,” she said, and stopped. What words could possibly make things any better? “I miss you already.” She stopped again. “I’m sorry.” She tried one more time. “This never should have happened. It should have been me instead of you, off gathering fruit instead of safe at camp. You should have been able to go home, back to your families, and -” Her throat closed tight over whatever other words she had to say and she dropped her head, standing silent, pained vigil as she prayed.

After a time she heard the crackle of flames from behind her, and swiveled her head to watch the gryphon feeding a small fire. One feather and a tuft of fur from each gryphon, she saw, along with one each of his own. He said something she couldn’t understand, rippling and lilting in his native tongue as he looked at the sky.

“Who were they?” Rose waited to ask the question until she was sure the ceremony was over, the fire doused and the smoke dispersed into the air.

“Friends, probably. Enemies, maybe.” She couldn’t tell what was in his voice. “I suppose I’ll find out when we reach base camp.”

“I mean their names. Or - Celestia, I don’t even know your name.”

“Ah.” A faint spark of humor glimmered in his eyes. “Now you ask.” But it didn’t last as he glanced at the sky again, his expression returning to the unreadable. “I shall not burden you with their names. My dead are not your responsibility to bear, but I appreciate you asking. And I am Gérard.” He paused, about to add something, then shook his head. “Tch. Just Gérard will do.”

“Now, come. We have some time before it gets dark.”

Author's Note

I don't usually submit stories before they're finished.
I hope it won't be necessary, but edits may be done to chapters! If they're important, I'll try to keep you informed.

Check Your Bearings

Rose considered herself to be in good shape. After all, her team had spent most of the past three years trotting about the wilderness between Equestria and the sea, doing their part for the war effort. But there was apparently still quite a gulf between civilian and soldier, because the pace Gérard set aimed to take no survivors. And It wasn’t even his best pace, since he was limping from the injuries hidden under the no-longer white bandages.

She was glad that it was only a few hours, because by the time he stopped her legs were half numbed and wobbling with fatigue. “Sweet Celestia,” she groaned, dropping into the soft grass. “I’m not even going to be able to move tomorrow.”

“You’ll have to,” he said mildly. “We’re still too close to the camp.”

“What? We weren’t expected back for a week, at least. There aren’t going to be any ponies looking for me.”

“It is not ponies that worry me.” Gérard slid Scarlet Shimmer’s tent roll off off his back and began to assemble it, fumbling a bit with the unicorn-oriented design. She watched for a moment before her horn lit and the shapeless mass popped into its proper form with a series of sharp clicks. He snorted softly. “Tch. Unicorn magic.”

“What’s wrong with unicorn magic?”

He paused in turning out the contents of his own, gryphon-style saddlebags. “Wrong is not the correct word. Dwgrhyfedd…” He shook his head. “I would have to teach you our tongue. It is disconcerting for prey to have such powers at their disposal.”

“Prey?” Abruptly the weariness in her legs didn’t seem to matter so much. She scrambled to her hooves, her ears flattened. “Is that all we are?”

He cocked his head at her. “There are predators, and there are prey. That is the nature of the world.”

“Easy for you to say! You’re not on the prey end of things.”

Gérard deliberately looked down at the blood-tinged wrappings swathing his back and right side. “Am I not?”

Rose blinked at him.

“Food, then bed. No fire tonight. Tomorrow morning we shall look at your maps and see what the best route is to the coast.”

“Fine.” His constant commands were irritating, but not as terrifying as other pieces of conversation. She started to remove her own tent, damaged though it might be, but Gérard disagreed without even looking up from his sorting.

“One tent. I don’t want to have to stay up all night listening to make sure you stay put.”

She stomped a hoof, then stopped, feeling it was too petulant a gesture. “I know I can’t do anything about this. You don’t have to rub my face in it.”

“What?” He looked up at her, sounding genuinely baffled.

“Treating me like a foal. We both know I’m not as strong or as fast as you. You could at least give me a little dignity.”

Gérard turned to face her fully, eyes locked on hers with a predator’s focus. “I am sorry, Rose,” he said. “But how should I act? We are adversaries, you and I. It is your duty to escape or, failing that, ensure I do not complete my mission. It is my duty to make sure I succeed.”

“But then why keep me around? You could kill me, take my maps, and be off on your own!” She realized the insanity of arguing for her own death, but the gryphon’s behavior was so nonsensical she couldn’t leave it alone.

“I may have to yet,” he said calmly. “But one does not kill simply because it is convenient. Death is too important to be treated so casually.”

“Don’t you mean life is?”

“No.”

With his beak he tore a piece off a strip of something he’d produced from his bags, swallowing it hungrily. Rose recognized it belatedly as dried meat and retreated queasily to the tent, only managing to down a pair of dried persimmons after her stomach settled. She couldn’t decide which was worse, his habits or his conversation.

By the time he climbed into the tent she’d hunched herself into her bedroll, as far from the opening as she could get. She really didn’t want to think about sharing such a close space with a predator, and he was blessedly quiet, merely tying the tent closed and settling down just inside the entrance, leaving plenty of room between them. But she could smell him, sending a steady trickle of anxiety down her spine, and it was with that uneasy tension that she fell asleep.

The nightmares, when they came, were oddly not of his talons and the feel of them pressed against her throat, but of his beak. It tore at her, pulling off strips of Sharp Eye and Golden Glimmer and Mercy White, Sky Shadow and Scarlet Shimmer...leaving her a bare skeleton, and alone.

She woke with a convulsive jerk, flooding the tent with warm golden light as she lit her horn by reflex. For a vanishingly brief instant she could hope it had been a nightmare from beginning to end, and nothing was amiss with her world. But then she saw his eyes shining back at her from the other side of the tent and knew that everything was wrong. When morning came, he didn’t need to wake her. She was up, bone-weary and wary, the moment he stepped out of the tent.

Rose wasn’t sure if what she had said the previous night had any impact, but he at least afforded her some privacy for her morning’s ablutions, and she finally was able to scrub away the dried gryphon blood in her coat. By the time she was finished and had managed a meagre breakfast, Gérard had changed his bandages and was waiting for her. “Could you get out the maps?” He asked politely.

She stifled a no. He was being more courteous, even if a refusal wouldn’t mean much. It took but a moment to slide them out of her saddlebags, and he stepped over next to her to examine them.

They were good maps. The basic layout of Equestria had been copied from the Royal Archives, but the rest she had filled in herself. It was mostly the work of her team, laying the groundwork for the supply chains that fed and armed and healed the ponies at the front, and partly the result of talking to other, similar teams on their brief stops in the forward bivouac. It wasn’t just the topography and vegetation and rivers, but prevailing wind currents, local hazards, seasonal variations in the best routes. They showed the connections between farm centers, mines, forges, and the staging points for the hazy line of the Equestrian Front.

Gérard made a feline noise deep in his throat, reaching out to brush his talons against one of the unrolled sheets, then threw back his head and laughed. It wasn’t a joyful sound. It was pained, hysterical, born of a humor darker than night’s shadow. She snapped the maps shut, taking several steps away from him as he clutched his beak with his talons to stifle the despairing laughter, his sides heaving.

“Ow,” he said at last, the first concession he’d made to the grievous wounds hidden underneath the linen. “Forgive me, Rose. I was not expecting that.”

“What, the maps?” She frowned at him, more than a little put out by his reaction and suspecting that he really was more than a little insane. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing at all. They’re excellent maps, perhaps the best I’ve ever seen.” He regarded her and them, running his talons through the deep blue fur that covered his head. “And if I’d had them a year ago, we could have won the war.”

She had a sudden urge to tear them into pieces, no matter that she’d worked on them for years, but he sighed and dropped his claws before she decided to follow through on it. “Always too late. Oh, you needn’t worry. Even if I could magic these back to the front this instant it would change little. The moment has passed.” He waved at the rolled-up charts floating around her. “Let’s see them again. I’ll try not to upset you.”

“It’s too late for that,” she muttered, but opened them again anyway. The battle line was to the north, past the Foal Mountains, and while most of it was uninhabited and undeveloped, they’d still have to cross through Equestrian territory to get there. That was fine with her, but she didn’t see how he thought he could get away with it. Or for that matter, how he’d managed to get here in the first place.

He reached out for the chart that showed the entire coast, tapping it with a claw. She winced, but he was gentle enough that it didn’t tear the paper. “There,” he said, pointing at the top spur of Horseshoe Bay. “That’s where we’re headed.”

“What in Celestia’s name were you doing way down there?” It was more or less the middle of nowhere. The Hayseed Swamps covered the entire area, rendering it unfit for either pony or gryphon habitation. That might change one day, but for now it was simply a big stretch of difficult wilderness.

“It’s better you don’t know,” Gérard said seriously. “When the time comes to ransom you back to Equestria, it is better that nobody feels you know something you shouldn’t.”

“If it comes.” She raised her eyebrows at him.

“I would rather say when. The ‘ifs’ are bad for either you or for me.” His beak clicked shut on the beginning of more words and he shook his head. “Where are we?”

“You’re asking me? You’re the ones that found us.”

“I’m afraid things are much different on the ground than in the air. But I suppose I should get used to it.” He glanced back along her body. “And from what I understand that mark means you are good at navigation.”

“Yes.” It was difficult to mistake the meaning of her namesake on her flank. “All right.” She shifted charts. “We’re here,” she said, putting her hoof on the campsite marker, southeast of where the Rambling River and the Everfree River joined into the great Baltimare. “Or rather, about eight miles east given yesterday evening’s trek.” Her horn shimmered as the cast a small spell, extending the track the appropriate fraction and adding a gryphon silhouette to it.

“Only eight miles?” He sounded disappointed. “I would have thought we had gotten further.”

“I’ve done a lot of walking. I know how far we went.” She retrieved a straight rule and did a few calculations, referring to her charts. “Two hundred and twenty miles to your camp in a straight line.”

He was silent. They could both do the math. Ten miles a day was probably the best they could hope to average, and a straight line wasn’t possible .“Well,” he said at last. “I suppose without you I would be lost.”

“We can take the river for about fifty miles before it gets too dangerous,” she offered. “From here to here.” She slid her hoof along the map, stopping just before the Hayseed Swamps.

“Perhaps,” he conceded. “But we’ll have to stay out of the open. We will simply go eastward for now, until we find a ford.”

There was a ford to the west, but that was probably far too close to ponies for comfort, so it wasn’t worth a mention. Rose carefully stowed the charts again, failing to stifle a yawn. Ten miles wasn’t going to be possible today, at least. Despite stretching she could still feel yesterday’s exertions as a lurking tremble in her legs, not to mention the lack of sleep. She’d had long days and bad nights before, but never that long or that bad.

She turned her head, by habit looking for Sky Shadow to tell him of the day’s plans, but of course he wasn’t there. He was in a grave eight miles away. The pain struck her hard enough to drop her back to the ground, and she scrubbed at her muzzle with her hooves.

“Are you well?”

“Five of my friends were murdered yesterday,” she said fiercely, not looking up at him. “How could I be well?”

“Hmm.” He replied, and left her alone. She heard the sounds of him taking down the tent, clumsily, and other noises that she couldn’t identify, then silence. Eventually his voice came from behind her right ear, making her jump. “I am sorry, Rose, but we must get moving. It is not safe here.”

“For you or for me?” She asked bitterly as she clambered to her feet.

“Yes.”

She scowled at him and checked the sun, heading northeast. Thankfully, Gérard didn’t try to push for the same pace, seeming content to follow her for the moment. It made her shoulderblades itch, but it was just as well, because the gryphon was terrible at pathfinding. By actually watching where she was going and a spell or two, she was able to cover twice the distance with half the effort.

Eventually he remarked on it. “Are all ponies so adept in the wilderness? I was given to understand ponies preferred tamed land.”

Rose snorted, refusing to look back at him. “Are all gryphons the same? My special talent is finding a way, so that’s what I do. I thought you knew about cutie marks.”

“Tch. I know the marks are important. But they seem...uncertain. Vague.”

“Not to us.”

“Hmm.” Gérard fell silent again. She risked a glance back and found him staring intently, even hungrily at her, making the skin on her back twitch of its own accord. Even now that it seemed he wasn't intent on making a meal of her, his presence was uncomfortably, viscerally disturbing. The thready trickle of fear dripping along her spine never really went away, even when he was being quiet enough that she couldn’t tell he was still there.

By the time they broke out of the canopy a little past midday, into a narrow band of soggy grass bordering some unnamed tributary of the Baltimare, Rose’s legs were aching. The ground squished somewhat alarmingly underhoof, a foretaste of the actual swamps downstream, but it was faster going than picking their way through the tangled undergrowth. Behind her, Gérard made an unhappy noise but didn’t actually object, merely picking his way tentatively through the boggy ground.

Rose found her way to the nearest stone, where moss kept it at least mostly dry, and dropped down to rest. Gérard crowded in beside her, shaking muddy water from his talons. “A wonderful country,” he observed, wiping his hind feet off on the corner of the rock. “At least, to fly over.”

“We were avoiding the swamps,” Rose pointed out. “It’s not worth it to lay track in a place like this.”

“Why were you out here anyway? There aren’t any pony settlements out here. Or there weren’t, before the war.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you,” she said pointedly. “For your own safety.”

He snorted. “My safety is of little importance these days. But your point is taken; keep your secrets if you must. I am no inquisitor.”

Gérard sipped water from a spouted canteen, then shook it, listening to the slosh. “We will have to risk a fire this evening. I would not trust this water straight from the source.” He looked doubtfully at the sluggish stream.

“Mmph.” There had been a magic-powered distiller back at the camp, but it was Scarlet Shimmer’s, and she hadn’t thought to take it. She relied on her team, just as they relied on her, and without them she was incomplete and off-balance.

And lonely.

It seemed to come in waves. For a while she could lose herself in the travel, or even the occasional conversation, and feel some degree of normalcy. And then something would suddenly bring it all back, and she’d be hit again by the realization that she was a prisoner a long way from home.

She stood abruptly, taking several long steps away from the gryphon despite her weariness. Gérard looked at her quizzically, his ears swiveled forward, his muscles going suddenly taut. Ready to pounce. She waved her hoof frantically at him. “No, I just...I just need some air.”

He inclined his head to her, relaxing ever so slightly, and she let out a long breath. So the break wasn’t completely wasted, she pulled out the maps again, marking the agonizingly small progress they’d made and altering the bend of an uncertain blue line feeding into the Baltimare. If she survived, at least she would have an incredible record of her journey.

If she survived.

Plot Your Course

Rose was expecting Scarlet’s voice to tear her away from her maps, as it had so many times before, so Gérard’s gravelly rumble jolted her badly. “We should try and find a good way across this river. Upstream or downstream?”

She blinked at him. “Why, we can cross here. Oh, except for your bandages.” She frowned at the watercourse, which was too deep for wading and not narrow enough to jump across, and then gestured northward. “There should be a fall before it joins with the Baltimare. I expect we’ll find a good crossing somewhere around there.”

“I am fortunate to have you,” Gérard told her. “This journey would be so much more difficult without an adept navigator.”

Rose snorted angrily. “It would be easier if my friends were still alive! And if I weren’t held captive by some deranged predator.”

“Or if I could still fly,” he sighed, not disagreeing. “If I had been more alert, none of this would have happened.”

“You need to leave other people out of your mistakes,” Rose muttered, marching off across the muddy grass.

“Tch,” he said, a disapproving click of his beak, but didn’t elaborate on it one way or the other. Instead he simply padded after her, staying further from the water than her. She glanced back at him, and slowed enough that he came nearly alongside her.

As soon as he was within range she pivoted on her front legs, lashing out as hard as she could with her hind legs and catching him squarely on the bandaged part of his side. The impact was unpleasantly yielding under her hooves, and he made a soft, strangled groan as he crumpled onto the grass. She made a mad dash for the river and threw herself in, the muddy water closing over her head for a moment before she surfaced, kicking frantically with her hooves. It might just be that he couldn’t swim, and if so, she was probably free the moment she reached the other side.

“Compass Rose!” She heard him bellow when she was halfway across the river, but she didn’t dare look back, just focusing on swimming as fast as she could. There was a moment of worrisome silence and then something slammed into her hindquarters, dragging her under the water. She spluttered and clawed her way to the surface despite the weight, craning her neck to see Gérard hanging grimly onto her, his talons digging painfully into her flanks. “Swim,” he instructed her.

She struggled toward the shore with a panicked flailing of her hooves, the larger gryphon a dead weight dragging her down. If the river had been anything but gentle she never would have made it, and even as it was by the time her hooves found muddy bottom she was shaking and trembling, throat raw from choking on water. When she finally made the riverbank she collapsed onto the grass as Gérard dragged himself out beside her, the bloody tracks where he’d held onto her stinging and aching at the same time and her heart pounding madly as she dreaded his reaction.

He laughed.

It was a real laugh, not like the pained hysteria of before, a throaty chuckle that wobbled between comforting and disturbing “That was very good. I have learned to respect a pony’s kick, but I did not expect to be on the receiving end of yours.” He touched his side and winced. “Carelessness seems to be a theme of mine lately.”

“You’re...you’re not mad?” She stared at him, flabbergasted. Mad was an understatement. She’d expected him to be murderous, but he seemed almost happy about what she’d done, which was in its own way more disturbing.

“It is the first duty of a prisoner to escape, and that was a marvelous try.” He clicked his beak at her. “I was not sure whether you had given up, so I suppose I have my answer.”

“But I -” She coughed and scrubbed at her muzzle with a hoof. “You’re playing with me, aren’t you?”

“Oh, no, Rose, this is deadly serious.” He sobered. “We are enemies, you and I, and both our lives are chained to what we do here. But I do not care to remove anyone’s dignity, or heart. It gladdens me to see I have not done that to you.”

“Ah,” she said, a bit dazed. “So you’re not going to...do anything?”

“I will take care that this does not happen again, but I will not punish you for doing what you must.” He sighed. “Unfortunately I think you have undone all your stitching. We will have to stop here and properly treat our wounds. I had hoped to get further before that became necessary. Perhaps you will help me with that again?”

“After all that,” Rose dragged herself to her hooves. “You’re still asking for my help?”

“Just because we may have to kill each other someday does not mean we can’t be decent to each other,” Gérard appealed to her.

“Fine,” she said, lacking the energy to argue. Rose tottered up the slope of the riverbank to lean against the nearest tree, upending her saddlebags and distributing the contents over her still-crumpled tent in hopes that they’d dry off. She ran her hoof sadly over the waterlogged cover of the journal, though Sky’s sketchbook seemed to have escaped with only minor spattering.

“Are the maps ruined, then?” Gérard approached her cautiously, limping even more noticeably than before. Distantly, she wondered how he even managed to stay upright, with the shape he was in.

“No, they’re waterproof. I do all the changes with spells.” Her mouth answered automatically, her brain too scattered to think. She reached back to touch the bloody rivulets oozing from her flanks, but stopped short partway.

“Then all we have lost is time.” Gérard joined her under the trees, dripping wet and looking even less harmless than before, his fur plastered against corded muscle. “Do you think you could find an appropriate place to set up camp?”

“No!” She exploded at him. He blinked. “I can’t - I can’t do this. I thought you were going to kill me there in the river! Or worse! And you don’t even notice!”

He sighed and sat, running his talons through dark blue mane and shaking aside the water. “Compass Rose,” he said gravely. “I would not hurt you.” He glanced at the bloody streak along her flank. “On purpose,” he amended. “And I would not take any life in frustration or anger. There may be a day when I must kill you, and I hope it never does, but if I must it will be because I have no other choice. Until then, you are perfectly safe.”

“Safe until you kill me,” she said in as bitter a tone as she could muster.

“Is that so strange? Yes, I suppose it must be for you.” He answered himself. “Ponies do not act that way. How odd it must be to never have that edge to your life.”

“I would rather do without it!”

“I suppose so.” He leaned forward toward her. “Rose, we are stuck here together, you and I. We will be for weeks at least. Please do me the favor of believing my honorable word. I know you could never regard me as a friend, but could you extend your trust to me as an honorable enemy?”

Rose slumped against her tree. “Do I have a choice?”

“It is entirely your choice.”

She frowned at him, and for an instant she felt she understood what he meant, though it was only fleeting and only a feeling. It might have been just her exhaustion, or his continued insistence on the absurd was too much, but it was enough to keep her from snapping a reply. Rose shivered, suddenly realizing how cold she was. “I’ll...I’ll find us a campsite.”

Gérard looked disappointed, though she might have only been imagining it. “Very well,” he said, shedding his saddlebags with a wet thump. Some of the medical supplies he’d pilfered from Mercy were still intact in their sealed jars or cases, but the linen wraps were ruined and something he’d taken from one of his fellow gryphons had been reduced to a muddy, ill-smelling mush. She didn’t care to look too closely at most of the food supplies he set out to dry, but her attention was caught by an oilcloth-wrapped package that he handled carefully, almost with reverence. He checked it carefully, then placed it delicately on the ground as he shook out the saddlebags.

Rose almost asked, but his expression when he stowed it away again was so pained that she didn’t dare. Instead she closed her eyes, focusing on one of the more complex spells she knew. Some unicorns had flashy magic, especially when it came to their signature spells, but hers was more of a whisper, filtering out around them and returning with little specks of information. Where the ground was wet, and where it was dry. Where it was high, and where it was low. Where there were grass and trees, and where there was dirt.

It wasn’t all that extensive, really, and a pegasus could cover a thousand times the ground in an afternoon, but a pegasus wouldn’t have the same feel for the land. She opened her eyes to see Gérard watching her intently and waved southeast. “There’s a good place over there.”

“Thank you.” He replaced the contents of his saddlebags, despite them being still wet, and nodded to her. “Let us go. I would rather be under the canopy.”

She took a deep breath and obeyed, turning her tent into a temporary bindle rather than repacking it all, and led him a few hundred feet to the spot she’d found. It wasn’t so much a clearing as a flat patch, hidden from sight by spreading branches but with light enough to feed ground-covering ivy.

“Very good,” he said approvingly, and yet again started laying things out to dry. She followed suit, then collapsed into one of the patches of sun to warm up. Everything either ached or stung, but she was tired enough that she dozed for a time, at least until Gérard’s voice woke her. “Do you know any herb lore?”

She squinted over at where he was looking mournfully at the anemic remains of Mercy’s medical supplies and shook her head. “No, Golden knew all of that. I can identify fruits and a few trees, but beyond that…”

“Oh, well.” He sighed. “We would have run out eventually.” He began removing his wrappings, and she winced as his injuries were revealed, looking as bad as ever, if not worse, with blood oozing over scabbed and broken skin. And it was at least partly her fault, which made it even more disturbing.

“I’ll let these breathe for a bit,” he said, discarding the soiled bandages. “Can you start a fire with that horn of yours?”

“Of course,” she said, still staring. “I’ll...I’ll find some wood.”

He raised his eyebrows at her and clambered to his feet. “We will,” he corrected her, and it took her a moment to realize that he couldn’t trust her to leave. She hadn’t even been thinking of escape, but there was no point in protesting. Fortunately for both of them, it didn’t take long to collect what they needed; she already knew where caches of deadwood were from her spell, so it was merely a matter of picking it up rather than searching. Even so, by the time the fire was started Rose was ready to stop for the day, and even Gérard was a little wilted.

But there was more work to do. “I hate to do it,” Gérard said, eyeing her tent. “But we need bandages, and really only need one tent. Oilcloth will at least be reusable.”

“I suppose,” she said with little enthusiasm. The idea of having to share with a gryphon for weeks on end held little appeal for her, but walking around with open cuts along her flanks held even less. She scooted out of the way as Gérard padded over to begin operations on the tent fabric, his talons more than sharp enough for the job, and started boiling water in some improvised containers. Sky had at least hammered enough survivalism into her head for her to remember that.

After they’d sterilized several strips of cloth, Gérard retrieved one, along with one of the containers of boiled water, and approached her. She drew back for a moment before she stopped herself, eyeing him warily. “Do you...know what you’re doing?” She couldn’t deny that it needed to be done, and that it’d be hard for her to do a proper job given how much it already hurt. But she wasn’t eager.

“Tch. I have been doing field medicine since I was a fledgeling. Now hold still.”

It wasn’t the first time Rose had been injured. Roaming the untamed wilderness of Equestria for three years was guaranteed to cause at least a few scrapes, but Mercy had always been at hoof to attend to them, and she was far gentler than Gérard. Of course, Mercy also had the proper medical spells to numb wounds, help them knit, and keep them clean, so she’d never given much thought to what it would be like without them. And it was unpleasant.

She gritted her teeth as he wielded the cloth and water to wash and wipe out the deep scores along the flanks, which only served to make them feel worse no matter how necessary it was. Then he opened Mercy’s jars and she found she truly missed the unicorn’s spells. The salve was fine, but the resin didn’t just sting, it itched, which was even more maddening. Despite her squirming, Gérard kept pressure on the cuts, holding them closed until the resin set. “I wish I had seen this earlier,” he remarked. “Ah well. That was not so bad, was it?”

Rose swallowed a yes. It was certainly something she could have done without, but compared to the wounds he bore it was nothing. Between the kick, the swim, and his removal of the bandages, the gouges and gashes crisscrossing his wing and side were only marginally less raw than they had been the first time she saw them. Worse, even, because now most of his plumage and a goodly amount of his fur had been rubbed off or stripped away, leaving bare and patchy skin. The largest, deepest cuts, along the base of his wing, where it joined his body, oozed rather than bled freely, but it was the sight of so much exposed muscle that truly disturbed her.

But she took a breath, picking up another scrap of oilcloth and applied herself to the task, mentally thanking Celestia that she didn’t have to actually touch anything. His beak snapped shut as she poured water over a patch of puffy and broken skin, and she was torn between sympathy at his pain and relief that he wasn’t completely unfeeling. It took far, far longer for him than it had for her, and used up the rest of the water, but after some time and several dirtied oilcloth rags she was satisfied his wounds were free of mud, fur, feathers, and any other debris.

“Only use the thread for what is absolutely necessary,” he told her, his voice even more gravelly than usual. “We will have to conserve it.”

“Yes, of course.” Privately she suspected they didn’t have enough regardless. He’d worried about the stitches back at her camp before he’d learned how far they had to go, and he had probably imagined it was a temporary measure. Used as he was to flying, he couldn’t have known it would be a trek of at least a month.

She used up the rest of the salve on him, which only drove home how extensive the damage was. It was bad enough to take in at a glance, but actually working on the swath of wounds made her intensely conscious he was lucky to be alive. And despite everything, she didn’t have it in herself to wish him dead, no matter how much simpler that would have made her life.

The tiny spool was over halfway emptied by the time she finished, and it took an alarming amount of her tent, properly cut and boiled, to cover everything and bind it in place. It was only the middle of the second day, and already they were down to the dregs of their supplies. She thought longingly of the cart Golden Glimmer had hauled, the weight of the baggage no impediment to an earth pony, but there was no possible way for the two of them to even carry a fraction.

“Thank you,” he said gravely, and she gave him a weary nod before crawling up next to the fire and closing her eyes, trying not to think of blood and cuts and open wounds. She tried not think about the furious itching of her flanks, or of how few supplies there were. But most of all she tried not to think about how much further they had to go.

Don't Get Lost

Gérard’s talons caught her hoof. “You need to stop doing that,” he chided her gently. She pulled away from him, planting the hoof she’d raised to scratch at her flank on the ground again.

“I know.” She was trying, but every time her mind wandered, her hooves seemed to move of their own accord to try and rub at the cuts. And it was all she could do not to throw herself down on the ground and roll. “It’s just that Mercy made things like this so much easier.”

“Mercy White was a good healer?” Gérard’s voice held echoes of some emotion that Rose couldn’t begin to guess at.

“Yes!” She glared back at him briefly before returning to picking her way through a boggy patch, her hooves still wet from one of the tiny rills that fed it. “One of the best!”

He sighed. “I am sorry, Rose. That should not have been her death.”

“Nothing should have been!” She was willing to let him treat her physical wounds, but the emotional ones were still too raw. “Apologies just...just aren’t enough!”

“Yes.” He sighed softly. “Her death is my responsibility, so I should know about her. I should know what debts I owe.”

“What?” Rose nearly missed the next dry patch, stumbling and then hopping across the last muddy swath onto solid ground, grimacing as the movement briefly turned the itch into a stabbing jolt. She turned and frowned at him as he followed her steps, attaining the bog’s edge with somewhat more aplomb. “What under the sun are you talking about?”

He clicked his beak at her, and she imagined he was trying to frown back. “Tch. Surely ponies must address the debts of their dead.”

“But they’re dead.” She blinked at him. “How can they owe anything?”

“That’s not right. There has to be some responsibility.” He shook his head in frustration. “Who will pay what is owed? I must offer something to redress their deaths.”

Rose stared at him, trying to puzzle out what he was talking about, absently reaching back to scratch at her wounds. Then she pulled hoof away as understanding bubbled up, and with it, anger. “You think you can just buy off killing them?” She screeched, and his ears flattened. “That’s horrible!”

“I don’t understand,” he protested. “What is so wrong about paying debts?”

“You can’t put a price on lives!” She snorted at him, her ears laid back. “They’re more important than any sort of wealth.”

“But I don’t mean their lives at all.” He snapped his beak at her, more emphatically this time. “It is the deaths I am talking about, and -”

“That’s the same thing!” She shouted at him. “You can’t make up for killing someone. Once they’re dead, they’re gone forever!”

“Yes, but the death matters, as does what they leave behind.” As her voice had gotten louder, his had gotten quieter, and his eyes had narrowed. “I cannot believe that ponies would just abandon their dead.”

“What they leave behind is their friends and family! And there’s nothing you can do to make it up to them. Can you give Golden’s foals back their father? Or - “

“Hush,” he snapped at her suddenly, and she stomped her hoof.

“No! You can’t just shut me up like that. I -”

She caught him moving that time, a blurred leap as he pounced on her, clamping a forepaw over her muzzle, his body pressing hers up against the tree. “Shh,” he breathed in her ear. “Don’t speak. Don’t move. Our lives may depend on it.”

Rose struggled in sudden panic for a moment, then realized he wasn’t looking at her at all, but up at the sky past the trees, his ears perked forward. Slowly the anger leaked out of her as it became clear something other than the argument was amiss; Gérard’s ears kept twitching, his head moving in short jerks as he tried to focus on something.

It was almost a full minute later when she caught a glimpse of a gryphon silhouette framed against the blue sky. A minute later it came again, or maybe there was a second one. The last buzzing dregs of angry adrenaline congealed into leaded anxiety as the two of them crouched against the trunk of the tree, breathing as quietly as they could.

The two minutes stretched to ten, and then twenty. Rose’s left hind leg began to ache but she didn’t dare stretch it, not so long as Gérard was tense and still, moving only his ears and his eyes. Finally he let out a slow breath, letting her go and stepping away from the tree.

She shivered all over in pent-up reaction, stretching her legs and moving as quietly as she could. All she could think about was that she had barely seen them, never heard them, and yet Gérard noticed them coming from miles away. When he had said the other gryphons had been careless to have been killed by ponies, he hadn’t been simply dismissing them.

Rose counted herself fortunate that she’d never seen battle. She’d never even seen the aftermath until she’d stumbled into the nightmare of her camp, so her concept of combat was distant, blurry and half-imagined. But she knew without a doubt that those silent-winged gryphons, with Gérard leading them, could have passed by their camp or killed them all and spent the same amount of effort. For the first time she found herself wondering how terribly wrong things must have gone for there to be any gryphon bodies at all.

“The graves were a good idea,” Gérard said softly. “They’ll probably think ponies came by. I hope they’ll look in the wrong direction, but they may be back soon.”

“That’s not why we dug them,” she hissed, keeping her voice just as low. It was petty, but she was still shaken.

“Yes. My apologies, Rose, I did not intend it that way. I am merely concerned about their actions.”

She nodded grudgingly. “Besides, ponies would have buried the gryphons, too.”

He snorted, a soft exhalation of air. “Let us hope they do not know that.”

Her hoof went to Sharp Eye’s pendant, now around her neck, and she hoped the gryphons would leave her friends be. “Who were they?”

“Ganon and Kree,” Gérard answered, flexing his talons. “They must have come straight back. Do you think you could find us a course that keeps us under the most cover?”

“Why, yes, but...they went all the way there and back in three days?”

Gérard laughed. Quietly. “I’m sure they didn’t even sleep. It serves them right.”

“Are they the ones that...hurt you?”

“This is Kree’s talonwork, yes. But Ganon has always followed his lead.” He waved her forward and she glanced around, picking out a path that sacrificed ease and speed for cover and quiet.

She was still on edge as she crept along the gnarled trunks of ancient willows, so when his voice came again it made her start. “I think we have been talking past each other.”

“Hmm?” Her ears twitched, but she refused to look back. “We haven’t been talking much at all.”

“Earlier, when you became angry,” he clarified. “I was talking about paying off their deaths, but I realize now you could only talk about their lives. I think we might be meaning entirely different things.”

“I hope so.” There was a flash of indignation, a resurgence from an argument that seemed hours old now, but it was quickly buried under more constructive emotions. She would much rather find that Gérard was not as callous as he seemed.

“When I was young, I duelled the promising young apprentice of a steelsmith.” His voice was contemplative, reflective. “I killed him.” The word was free of the flinch or regret that any pony would give it, admitting such a thing. It was simply what had happened. “And spent the next half year helping the steelsmith hammer iron until I found a replacement.”

She found he was looking at her expectantly. “Ponies don’t duel. And they don’t kill each other.”

“No?”

“Well, it might happen sometimes but it’s not normal. It’s always a terrible thing.”

“Then...how do you resolve affronts to your honor, your family, your clan, or conflicts where neither side will back down? What do you do when there is no other recourse?”

“That doesn’t happen.” She shook her head at him, faintly horrified. “We don’t do those sorts of things.”

He clicked at her, his beak snapping shut. “But that is how people are. There are always those who will push until they are stopped, or take everything they can and leave nothing left. And there are always those who must be in charge and must not be in charge.”

“Maybe that’s how gryphons are,” she said in a level tone. “But not us. We’re a community. We help each each other and work together on problems.”

“So do we! But there must be more than simply cooperating.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to kill anyone!” She found herself raising her voice again. “It is never acceptable,” she said firmly, rubbing at her throat with a hoof. But she could see, faintly, where he was coming from when he had asked about Mercy.

“I do not see how it can be avoided.” He shook his head slowly. “But I suppose I must take your word that it is.”

“Yes,” she said, but she was having just as much difficulty accepting Gérard’s view of life. The thought that fighting someone to the death was simply part of life was more than a little nauseating. She still felt bad about hurting Gérard, and he hadn’t even minded it.

And somewhere among her scattered thoughts another one came to the fore, one that should have occurred to her before. “If they can fly that far in a few days, is anyone going to be waiting at the camp by the time we get there?”

He made a noise that only a gryphon could, something both feline and avian, but it wasn’t a happy sound. She had hit something. “I hope so. They are supposed to stay until recalled, regardless of what success we found. But without me, Kree might convince them otherwise.”

“So we could go all that way and nobody would be there?” That seemed almost worse than having to endure a full camp of gryphons. Gérard had made it clear that he intended to send her back to Equestria, eventually, so if the camp were intact she only needed to wait for that. But if it were abandoned, she had no idea what they would do.

“I hope not,” Gérard sighed. “I do not like sailing.”

Rose looked back, unable to tell if he was joking. His face was no help, since for once he wasn’t watching her, his eyes lifted to the sky and his ears twitching.

“Are they coming back?” She kept her voice quiet, even though she knew he would stop her long before even shouting would give them away.

“Not yet. Ganon is a tracker, but even if he notices our path they’d simply cover the area in flight.” He waved it away, focusing on her again. “Your mane and tail are my largest worry. Red and orange like that stand out in our surroundings.”

It was true enough. The colors around them were mostly green and brown, with the occasional splash of white or blue. But there were flowers here and there so she wasn’t entirely out of place. “They aren’t going to be looking for me, though. Unless you think they’d investigate anything that might be a pony.”

“Kree might. Ganon is more careful.” He clicked his beak. “It should not matter. So long as we stay under cover I should be able to hear them before they can hear us.”

“I can’t believe you can actually hear them flying from that far away.”

“Compared to me you are deaf and blind.” She rolled her eyes, and he laughed. “But your eyes see things mine do not.” He waved a talon at the path she was picking out, winding clean and smooth through the willows. So far she’d even managed to avoid burrs in her coat, though Gérard hadn’t been quite so lucky. “And you have your horn, so perhaps I am not giving you enough credit. You need to stop that.” He interrupted himself to catch her hoof as she tried to rub at her flank again.

“You don’t think much of me, do you?” She pulled away from him, frowning and focusing on the path ahead.

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s just the way you act. There’s no…” Rose struggled with it a moment, trying to put a vague and nebulous feeling into words. “Trust, I guess.”

“You are my prisoner,” Gérard pointed out. “Trust is a scarce commodity. And I do trust that you can find us a path.”

“It’s not that. You...don’t trust that I’ll do anything without being told to do it, or how to do it.”

“I do not know what you mean. I have tried to be as polite as I can.” His voice held a bit of snap.

Rose was silent for a while, thinking. “Yes,” she said finally. “I think you have. It’s just that it’s not like being with another pony.”

“And you are not a gryphon.” He made a soft crooning noise and then clicked his beak at her. “Tch. Rose, I have tremendous respect for you. And your kick.” The last was delivered with a short laugh. “Would that we had gryphons of your talent.”

“But gryphons don’t have cutie marks,” Rose interrupted. “So you couldn’t have anyone with my special talent.”

“I suppose not.” He sounded surprised. “But what I mean is that any disrespect I may seem to have is simply because the situation we are in, you and I. We are enemies. Captor and captive. It cannot be comfortable for you.”

“No, it’s not.” But Gérard was uncommonly conscientious for an enemy. At times she could almost forget the slaughter of her friends. Almost. But then, Gérard hadn’t done it.

“Kree,” she said suddenly. “He killed them, didn’t he?”

He didn’t respond immediately, and when he did his voice was cautious. “After I fell, Kree would have led the rest of the squad. But it was my responsibility to keep him tamed, so what followed was my fault.”

“No,” she disagreed. “It was his.” Her anger, which had turned into a sort of vague background haze, suddenly came into razor focus on a target that really deserved it. Even if he was far, far out of her reach. “Why did he do it?”

“Likely because he thought it best,” Gérard sighed. “We are both loyal to what we think is right, but we disagree on what that is.”

She turned around and looked at him. “You don’t think killing ponies is right?”

“The war changed my mind.”

Know The Terrain

They went without a fire that night, and Rose wasn’t about to argue, but as she crunched down the last of the watercress she found herself aching for the bright, jovial evenings she had spent with her friends. Fire shouldn’t be something you feared. Gérard gnawed at his jerky equally gamely and, she thought, equally gloomily.

“Is it really a secret why he did it?” Gérard looked up at her and she pointed at his bandages. “Why he attacked you. If you were doing something important, why would he mess it up?”

“Not a secret,” he told her. “Just complicated. Perhaps.” He considered for a moment. “At heart, I think it is because he has never really lost. I know that we cannot win the war, but he does not accept that. So being here, away from the fighting, not attacking, infuriated him.”

“Because he couldn’t use his special talent.” Rose understood that well enough. Some soldiers really did have cutie marks related to combat, though not many.

“If you like.” He looked briefly startled at her comment. “He is too competent to dismiss, but too unruly to be granted command. He has been her hidden talon for years, but for this I was made his superior. And he must have thought I was not competent for this, so he removed me to do things himself. Thinking he could prove he could take command.” Gérard clicked his beak. “Of course, he did not know everything when he decided that.”

“Who is ‘her?’” Rose asked, suspecting it was the same ‘she’ he had mentioned back at the camp.

“Ah, of course. She is Aquila’s Talons, Wing-Commander of All Armies, Aida.”

“Oh.” Rose heard much the same reverence in his voice when he pronounced the name as she’d heard in ponies talking about Princess Celestia. And since Celestia was commanding the pony forces, there was some symmetry there, though Aida probably wasn’t a god. “So what will Aida do if she finds out?”

“If he performs well, a commendation. If ill, he is a traitor.” Gérard sighed. “So I wish him luck.”

She stared at him a moment, startled, then narrowed her eyes. “Your mission was that important?”

“Among other things.” He waved a claw in vague dismissal. “He might even be right. Only time will tell.”

He was definitely maudlin. She could understand that much, but wasn’t entirely sure what had brought it on, not when he’d remained at least somewhat cheerful through injury and a hard slog. By the time she finished her dinner no answer had presented itself, and she very nearly asked, but Gérard preempted her. “Sleep, Rose. Tomorrow will be a long day. The further we are from the camp, the harder it will be for Ganon to find us.” His voice was worried enough that she didn’t protest the order.

But that didn’t mean she obeyed it. After she closeted herself in the tent she updated the maps by the light of her horn, a tiny track inching toward the coast, and added in another pair of gryphon silhouettes, labeling them as Kree and Ganon. Then, belatedly, put Gérard’s name next to his mark, and changed the camp from a tent to a gravestone.

She wished she had Scarlet’s gift for writing, that she could record more than cartography of her journey. Her friends deserved more than a few markings on a sheet of paper, and all the little details from Gérard would probably interest somebody. But she didn’t have the talent, and the only paper belonged to her friends. They were half-ruined by water anyway, and she wasn’t going to desecrate them further.

Fitfully, she drowsed, dreaming of writing, but woke again with a start as Gérard stepped into the tent, bringing with him the sharp scent of blood. The smell jerked her to her hooves. “What happened?” She stared at him, wondering if the other gryphons had come back after all.

He stared at her, puzzled, until realization dawned. “Hunting,” he explained, hunkering down just inside the tent. “No need to worry.”

“...Oh.” Rose had no objections in theory; everything needed to eat. But the reality of having to share a tent with someone whose breath stank of blood and death was something else entirely. She swallowed bubbling, atavistic panic, but something of it must have shown in her expression, for he raised an eyebrow at her. After a moment, she just shook her head, burrowing back down into her bedroll and trying to recapture sleep despite the jangling of her nerves. Her mind was so occupied by diet that it took her a moment to realize just why he’d gone hunting in the middle of the night.

Then she thought about slipping away the next time he did it.

It didn’t last long, as a fantasy. There were still the other gryphons out there, though whether near or far she couldn’t tell. And wouldn’t be able to, without him. There had to be some sort of irony in that, something Scarlet could have labeled and enjoyed, but Rose didn’t find it funny at all.

By the time the long night ended she was again exhausted, but at least she had made something of her insomnia. “We should turn south,” she told Gérard as he finally washed his beak off with a tiny splash of water from his canteen.

“Oh?” He tilted his head at her, merely waiting for her to go on.

“Well, you followed the river on your way over here, right? And I bet Kree and Ganon are searching along it too.” She unrolled a chart and highlighted the river course. “So the fastest way to get away from them is to head away from it.”

“It would be,” Gérard admitted. He opened his beak again, then closed it with a click, gesturing for her to go on.

“Instead of trekking along the Baltimare by hoof the entire way, where they’ll be looking, we can just go to this river instead.” She put her hoof on a nameless branch of blue snaking up from the southwest. “And raft along it all the way to here. It won’t take much longer and more of it will be away from where they’d be looking.”

Gérard nodded thoughtfully. “Have you ever built a raft?”

“Not...exactly.” Rose grimaced. “Sharp Eye showed us how to do it once, and it didn’t seem hard. Have you?”

“Only once, long ago. But I expect we shall manage. You are right, that is the more discreet path.” He inclined his head to her. “Lead on, Rose.”

She hadn’t expected it to be that easy. Once the idea had come to her she’d spent half the night sleepily marshalling arguments in case he objected, and his immediate agreement was oddly disappointing. And it made her wish she had some clever motive or plan to take advantage of his amiability, but she was just finding the best way.

Maybe he knew that.

Gérard seemed to have few handles, at least compared to other people she’d known. It was difficult to tell what he was thinking or feeling, although at least half of that was because he was a gryphon. The vague tales from the front didn’t give her much to go by either - gryphons were fast, gryphons were vicious, gryphons were aggressive. Before the war, there hadn’t even been much trade with them, which made her wonder where and how Gérard learned to speak Equestrian.

His accented words broke into her thoughts. “Rose, would you be willing to tell me about your friends? I know you do not share my attitudes, but I would like to know more about those whose deaths I own.”

She bristled at that, though she knew he was only trying to be respectful, in some strange gryphon way. So she didn’t reply immediately, just putting one hoof in front of the other as she threaded her way south. It would probably take another day or so, but the occasional boggy patches would soon grow into a full-fledged swamp, and even she would have to be careful finding a path through. Much like her conversations with Gérard.

“All right,” she said at last. It wasn’t as if she were going to gossip about their darkest secrets. “But not all at once. I don’t - don’t think I could do that.”

“We have time,” Gérard murmured. She glanced back, but she didn’t think he was making fun of her, despite the wry tone. It was just the situation they were in. “Why don’t you start with Mercy White?” He prompted. “I will try not to upset you this time.”

She frowned, not really certain what to tell him or how to start. How do you capture an entire person in words? But then, she supposed he didn’t need to know Mercy like she had, only enough to satisfy whatever obligations he felt he owed. “Mercy was quiet. Serene. She made it seem like nothing ever bothered her - I’ve never seen her panic. But she cared for all of us, was always there when we had trouble.”

A fresh stab of grief stopped her, but Gérard didn’t press, letting her get to it in her own time. For a time she just focused on finding the path, putting one hoof in front of the other, but finally she resumed. “We were her family. She...lost her husband during the Nightmare Winter, so when the war came she was happy to join us out in the wilds of Equestria.”

“That was a hard winter for everyone,” Gérard said. “Some of us thought it was the end of the world when the sun would not rise.”

“It almost was. I still don’t like to think about it.” She remembered the darkness well enough, and the nightmares, though she was still hazy on the cause. There had been someone - somepony? What she knew for certain was that Celestia had finally brought the day again, presiding over sun and moon, and all of Equestria had celebrated the summer.

Then the next winter brought war.

“And she crocheted us all these amazingly ugly scarves but we still wore them because she made them. Only I left mine behind because I didn’t want to risk ruining it and it wasn’t supposed to be cold anyway. But Goldy packed his in the cart and I should have taken it with me...” The words tumbled out, near-incomprehensible at the end, but Gérard remained blessedly silent.

“Anyway,” Rose muttered. “We were all she had.”

She heard the click of his beak, but she couldn’t tell whether it was meant as a reply of some sort or if he’d simply thought better of saying something. When nothing else was forthcoming, she glanced back at him and ventured her own question. “What about yours?”

“Mine?”

“The dead gryphons. You said they were friends.”

“They might have been. I do not know if they were involved with Kree or not.”

“It doesn’t work that way! Friends can make bad decisions, but that doesn’t stop them from being friends.” She looked back at him. “Unless it’s different for gryphons.”

“Hmm.”

“And if you can expect me to trust you even if you might kill me then I don’t see…”

Gérard laughed. “You are right. I should not hold their decisions against them now that they are dead. Betrayal is a hard thing, but I should not look for it where it may not exist. Thank you.”

“...you’re welcome?”

“When you first asked about them, I was not certain you could be afforded the honor, but I think that question is answered now.” He considered while she tried to decide how to take that. “You prefer to know about lives rather than deaths. Hmm. I did not know most of my squad outside of our assignments, but I think Grizelda was not too dissimilar from your Mercy White.”

“Mercy wouldn’t have attacked anyone,” Rose objected. “She was a healer!”

“She was also not a gryphon, Rose,” Gérard chided her. “I think they were alike, but I expect we look for different things.”

“Mm.” Rose didn’t much like Gérard comparing her friends to any gryphon, but she hadn’t really thought of the gryphons as existing beyond the war and the fighting. She hadn’t thought of them as people.

Which made her realize that she hadn’t thought of them as being part of Gérard’s life, either. She was lonely, with her friends dead and only a gryphon for company, but Gérard was no better off. Possibly worse, depending on what awaited him at the end of the their journey.

“Grizelda was also white,” Gérard said, which made her the gryphon Scarlet had taken down. “And while not as serene as your Mercy White, she did try. But I think it was because she had a half-dozen suitors and didn’t want to encourage them. But for her, too, the squad was her life. Cadet as soon as she was fledged, never cut by blade or arrow. Fitting that she kept that record even in death.”

“That’s -” Rose cut herself off before she could say ‘terrible’ or ‘awful’ or some other such word. It must have been something to be admired for the gryphons, no matter how bleak a life it seemed to her. “Impressive? I mean, it sounds like it. Is that why she had so many suitors?”

“Oh, Rose. But you are not a hunter. The most dangerous prey is the most enticing, and a prey that has bested so many is prized indeed.”

There was something odd in his voice, and she looked at him speculatively. “Were you after her too?”

He barked a laugh and shook his head. “No, not I. I am too damaged, too tired. Too dishonored. She was a trusted comrade, but no more than that.”

“Well, I’m sorry for your loss,” Rose offered. Even if Grizelda had been attacking her friends, death was a terrible thing regardless of the gryphon attitude toward it. The rest of his explanation was too tangled for her to puzzle out, as if he’d forgotten for a moment that she had no knowledge of gryphons outside of him.

“Tch,” Gérard began, then sighed. “Thank you, Rose. You really do mean that, don’t you?”

“Of course!” She frowned back at him before stepping around an incongruous boulder, standing upright as if placed by some ancient titan.

“Then I do thank you. I doubt many, gryphon or pony, would be so forgiving.”

“It’s not about forgiveness. It’s about being a decent pony. Although,” she admitted reluctantly. “If you had killed my friends, or ordered them to, I don’t think...I don’t think I would be able to talk to you. But...if it weren’t for Kree, what would you have done?” She asked in dread curiosity.

“Passed you by.”

She waited for him to add something, but apparently that was all. “Really?” She ventured.

“Truly, Rose. Your group was no threat, and since you were not soldiers there was no honor in combat. And, forgive me, you were simply not important enough to distract us from our mission. Unless you are important and I simply do not know.”

“No, I’m ordinary,” she said, a trifle dazed. Everything might have been avoided, if only.

“I very much doubt you are.”

“What?” She stumbled over a rock that she could have sworn wasn’t there a moment earlier. “What did you say?”

“I am one of the few who have met ponies, if briefly. They were not like you.”

“Wait, I -” She stopped a moment, verbally and physically, to sort her thoughts. “Is that where you learned to speak Equestrian? What happened to them?”

“They’re dead, I’m afraid.” Gérard waved a talon vaguely. “Pawns, killed in the War of Houses. Eight years back, now.”

“Oh.” She found she wasn’t surprised, but she still mourned those poor ponies, lost to the gryphons even before the war began. “War of Houses? Are you always at war?”

“Not always.” He snorted, but it was amused rather than offended. “But yes, that is how I Iearned to speak your tongue. It was a project of mine, even though only my wife understood why I did it.”

“Oh, you’re married?” Rose brightened. The thought of Gérard having a family went a long way toward making him more equine.

“Not anymore.”

“Oh. Then, what -”

“She was the first casualty of the War of Houses.”

“...Oh.” She stared openly at him, and for once he didn’t meet her gaze.

Gérard had his talons wrapped around his beak, looking upward at the slowly purpling sky. She couldn’t read his expression, but his entire posture was slumped rather than alert. Only his ears remained pricked forward, twitching now and then. He looked miserable.

She turned all the way around, opening her mouth to give him some words of comfort as she lifted her hooves to offer him a hug, but before she could get out more than one syllable he’d pulled away, blurring backward into a defensive crouch. His eyes glittered as they focused on her, the predator’s gaze once again sending a jolt along her spine, a whiplash of fear that rocked her back on her hooves.

A long moment of startled silence stretched between them until Gérard let out a long breath. “I did not mean to startle you,” he offered at last.

“I’d say I startled you!” She found her voice. “What was that about?”

“Tch. It would be appropriate for a prisoner to take advantage of her captor’s moment of weakness.”

“But I wouldn’t -” She began, then stopped. He raised his eyebrows at her and she scowled back. “No, I wouldn’t. Maybe I should, but I couldn’t exploit...being sad.”

“No?”

“No. It’s just...it’s not what a good person does.”

“We all must strike a balance between honor and duty,” he murmured.

“It’s not about honor at all. It’s about what’s...right.”

“From whence all honor comes. In truth I expect you understand it better than most gryphons.”

“Being a good person isn’t that hard,” Rose protested.

Again he lifted his eyebrows at her. “When the choices are easy, perhaps not. When the choices are hard…” He clicked his beak. “Well, that is when you kick me in the side.”

She winced. “I still feel bad about that.”

“You should not. It was an excellent kick.”

Rose gave him a frown, not sure whether he was joking or not, and was about to respond when Gérard held up a talon. “Rose, do your maps say what dangers might be in this area?”

“No...” she blinked at him. “That’s part of what our team was supposed to find out.” It was no accident that they’d had a trained archer, a powerful unicorn, and a pegasus weatherwind with them.

“Ah. Well, I think we may have stumbled onto one.”

Mind Your Surroundings

She heard it as a faint keening, as of wind against stone, but there was no wind. And there should have been no stone, not that deep in a swamp, but Rose suddenly saw there were dozens of pillars, scattered haphazardly through the trees. All she had been concerned with was finding a path, and she hadn’t noticed the telltale remnants of some ancient settlement.

One of the standing stones was not twenty feet away, and she took an involuntary step back as the sound suddenly spiked, making the rock vibrate visibly and churning the mud around it. Unease, even panic, was abruptly flattened under the suffocating weight of attention, something old and vast stirring all about them and turning its gaze on the two of them. There were no words, nothing but the keening of the standing stones, but there was a sudden, sharp impression of fact.

You should not be here.

“Rose,” Gérard said in a strange, calm tone that she distractedly realized must be what fear sounded like on him. “I think we should go.”

“Yeees…” She took another step back, but the keening peaked into an earsplitting shriek and the swamp itself stirred.

Gnarled trees twisted and cracked, massive limbs swinging around and reaching for them. The ground bubbled, solid patches of earth falling away into a morass of ooze and churning tree roots while the wailing echoed from every stone. She danced in place for a moment as the muddy ground she was standing on somehow fell apart and sucked at her hooves at the same time, and leapt to a tiny island of ancient cobble wedged into the mire.

Gérard followed. He landed more or less on top of her, his talons scrabbling at the rock as he tried to keep either of them from falling off the tiny pocket of solid ground, and she shrieked as she overbalanced, nearly toppling into the hungry murk before he pulled her back.

“Down!” He pushed her flat as a huge limb swung toward them, knotted branches like flails, and his body twisted and flexed as he faced it. There was a crack and a groan, and the smashed, severed chunk of wood splashed down next to them, showering them with gritty mud.

“Celestia save us,” she whispered, staring around at the suddenly hostile swamp. She could even swear the aged willows were moving toward them, their roots writhing and twisting. The cobble tilted, their precarious perch becoming even more treacherous.

“Rose.” Gérard’s beak flashing an inch from her muzzle was suddenly far down on her list of worries. “You must find us a path. I will keep you safe.”

“In this?!” But she was already studying the terrain around them, trying to find some safe spot, some possible path to escape the hostile mire. She needed no spells for that, not that she had any that would really help. None of them provided quick answers.

“Over there!” She shouted. “Between those two trees.” She tried to point it out with a hoof, though she wasn’t sure he would see what she did. The animate roots had churned up an ancient log, petrified by peaty brine, and beyond it was a marginally less unsafe swath of muddy grass. But the log was already starting to sink again, the only solid path she could see threatening to vanish. Even if she wasn’t sure where to go from there, it was better than where they were.

But there was a problem.

“But I don’t think I can jump - “ She didn’t even finish the sentence before Gérard hurled her bodily across the gap, sending her skidding along the hardened bark until her hooves caught the stump of some long-ago branch. Just before he landed himself, it occurred to her he had good aim. He snatched her up again on the roll and vaulted to semi-solid ground even as the log tilted and began to sink.

“Where next?” He shouted in her ear, and she shook her head dazedly. Even animate trees only moved so fast, and so long as they were out of the reach of those branches they were relatively safe. At least until the swamp dredged up something else to throw at them.

She narrowed her eyes and looked around. The paths were not only scanty, but constantly changing. But if they could break out of the trees they might actually have a chance.

“That way,” she pointed. “But we’ll have to be fast to get through any of them.”

“I am fast,” he said grimly. “But you are not. Direct me.” Without any warning he hoisted her onto his back, and she clung, startled, as he dashed toward where she had pointed.

He was fast. She’d seen him move before, but it was a different thing altogether to experience it firsthoof. Even with her weight on his back and his injury, she could feel the surge as his muscles bunched and drove them forward directly at the flailing morass of root and branch.

“Bottom left!” It was her turn to yell in his ear, not even able to disengage her hoof to point. “Above that root!”

He grunted and adjusted course slightly, leaping through the momentary clear space, his claws catching on a broad shelf of animate wood before he bounced off again, leaping over an ominously still pool of black mud to land with a squelch in haunch-deep muck. Rose toppled off, plunging into the chill and suffocatingly thick ooze herself.

They couldn’t stop there. Even beyond the reach of any immediate trees, the mud and silt clung to them, trying to pull them down as they struggled through it. Tiny things bit at her legs, making her shudder as she hauled herself through to a sort of sandbar, slowly disintegrating in the churn.

Gérard heaved himself onto solid land next to her, the two of them not so much dripping as shedding, chunky mud slowly sliding off them. “Well?” He asked breathlessly, barely audible over the noise of the stones.

She was already looking. There was no end in sight to the awakened swamp, though she couldn’t see much beyond the malevolent willows. But she did find something unexpected, just below the surface of the mud. “A road!”

“What?”

“Come on.” She plunged back into the mud again with a shudder, half-swimming and half-slogging toward the telltale straight lines. It was thirty feet of cold, soggy misery, with all the tiny denizens of the ooze swirling about her legs, but eventually she made the road, still fetlock-deep but on stable ground.

The noise, if possible, got even louder. “Which way?” Gérard had to nearly scream to be heard above the din, and Rose had to stifle the urge to clutch at her ears.

She chose the direction on instinct, Gérard following behind as she splashed along the gentle curve of the cobbled road, as fast as she could manage without losing it entirely. For all the volume of the wail assailing them, nothing further seemed to be happening and they even seemed to be leaving the standing stones behind.

“Rose!” Gérard called her name a moment before the road bucked underhoof, not quite knocking her over but sending her stumbling a few steps. She looked back at him but he wasn’t stopping, so she didn’t either, praying that whole thing didn’t vanish from beneath their hooves. Or talons, or claws.

The road swayed drunkenly underneath them as they ran, sending up great sprays of mud, but didn’t manage to throw either of them off, though Rose had to slow to a crawl to keep her hooves. Not that it seemed to matter, the hostile swamp slid around them anyhow, as much riding the road as walking it, the straight lines curving and slithering.

And lifting.

Gérard cannoned into her as she skidded to a halt as the roadbed in front of her lifted up, murky water streaming from a massive stone serpent’s head. Moss clung to the carved jaws, and the eyes were made of fragments of some ancient mosaic staring sightlessly down at them as the rocky coils that were the road wound tighter and tighter.

For once Rose moved nearly as fast as Gérard, leaping out of the way as it struck with a tremendous noise that was felt, rather than heard. Endured, rather than experienced, a cacophonous wave that sent her skipping across the mud. She fought to her hooves again, struggling back upright in the clinging mud, only to find that Gérard hadn’t gotten out of the way at all.

He was on top of the snake’s head, grimly digging his claws into the golem’s eyes, uselessly chipping away at the mosaic tile as it reared and lashed a mile-long tail, sending up vast plumes of mud as it shook itself. The gryphon was a clinging gnat compared to the massive power of the ancient serpent, no more than a petty annoyance.

She saw his beak move as he shouted something at her, but she was still deafened, the struggle happening in a ringing silence. The snake plunged down again, not at her, but into the mud, and Gérard catapulted off onto the coils of rock still above the surface. He pointed, emphatically, and she understood what he was trying to say. Run.

She ran.

Or rather, slogged, through the terrible mud, not sure where she could possibly run to. But the moment she had the thought, she realized. The snake’s tail ran deep into the territory of the singing stones and the living swamp, but the head, the end of the road, was here. And roads didn’t end without reason.

Against all instinct, she splashed toward the snake, rather than away, making for where the head had first emerged from the mud. There had to be some line, somewhere very close, that marked the end of the territory. Scarlet would have known, and probably have noticed the magic of the stones before even straying inside. But all she had was Gérard, and he couldn’t replace a single one of her friends.

But he could distract the golem from her. She wasn’t sure what he thought of her sudden change of direction, but he gamely launched himself at the muddy head as it surfaced, spraying slime. He seemed to think he could still fly, she thought distractedly, barely clinging with two limbs at a time.

One of the coils whipped around as she passed by, a fresh churn of mud sweeping her up and then crashing over her head. She struggled to the surface, gasping for breath, only to be covered again. And again. And again.

Her lungs were aching by the time she crawled onto solid land, her limbs trembling with exhaustion, but the trees were still and the ground was solid, though nearly as muddy as she. Gérard had stopped dancing with the snake, and was just hanging on, the stone coils heaving and thrashing. She waved frantically at him, trying to convey that it was safe.

She wasn’t sure if he got the message, got distracted, or was just too tired to hang on any more, but he lost his grip on the golem’s head and was sent arcing through air, his good wing flapping madly to try and stabilize himself. Rose ran after him, wincing as he crashed down through willow branches, ending in a squelching slide and torn grass.

He staggered to his feet as she approached, whirling on her with a look that was pure predator, eyes hungry and sharp, freezing her in her tracks. Then he blinked, and the Gérard she knew returned. He snapped his head around just in time to catch the snake submerging again, the swamp subsiding in a deafened silence.

His beak opened and closed, but all she could hear was some faint sound through the ringing in her ears. By his expression he only just realized he couldn’t hear either, rubbing at his ears and then shaking his head and pointing away from the singing stones. The meaning was clear. Keep going.

But his leg gave out from under him and he nearly collapsed, stumbling forward a moment before balancing on three legs. Despite his grim willingness to push forward, she doubted he could get much further than she could in their current state. They were both covered tip to tail in mud, exhausted, and injured. So instead of simply going onward, she closed her eyes and cast her spell again, letting the surrounding terrain filter into her mind.

It was hopeless. There was nothing more to their surroundings than muddy swamp, and they needed clean water and a dry place to rest, not to mention a fire and, while she was wishing, a friendly inn with the finest cider. She groaned and started forward again, keeping her spell rippling over the landscape despite the strain. With any luck she’d find something before they dropped from exhaustion.

They trudged along for an agonizing hour and a half before she finally found a trickle of clear water, a rocky rill with a tangle of brambles and a shelf of overgrown roots, mossy but dry. They were both shedding flakes of dried mud as she dragged herself over to the moss and dropped to her belly, utterly spent.

Gérard collapsed next to her without a word. Despite the fierce discomfort of being caked in drying mud and the renewed itching along her flanks, she actually drowsed for a bit, until Gérard roused her by removing the wrappings around his wing and side, revealing a bloody, muddy mess. Reluctantly, she heaved herself to her feet, floating her canteen over to him before staggering off to collect dry wood.

It wasn’t until she had the fire going that she realized he hadn’t chaperoned her. But she didn’t think that was trust, only simple exhaustion. Neither of them had the energy for speech as she washed Gerard’s wounds with boiled water, wrinkling her muzzle at the telltale stink of a beginning infection. There wasn’t much she could do but smear the last of the salve on the ragged wounds and hope, and try not to think about the same happening to her own injuries.

Fortunately, as Gérard tended to her in turn, it seemed the resin had held up better than her stitches. The gouges were scabbed and sore, but closed.

“Pony lands are more dangerous than I would have credited,” he said at last.

She stared at him. “Why d’you think half my team was good at fighting? If they weren’t here, they would have been at the front.”

“Tch.” He seemed surprised. “I have been underestimating you, I think. Are all your expeditions like this?”

“No, my team was alive in all my expeditions.” She snapped at him. “Scarlet would have stopped that before it even started.”

“Was it unicorn magic, then?” He let her comment pass by.

“I have no idea.” She sighed, pulling the maps out of her saddlebags and flexing them to crack the mud off. “We just don’t know what is buried in most of these places.” Her horn lit as she added to their path, south, then sharply east. She outlined the area with standing stones and finished with the stone snake, its head outstretched and aligned perfectly with the cardinal direction.

“You do not? Isn’t this your land?”

“With Discord and the Winter of Nightmares, there is...a lot that’s been lost.” She rubbed at her throat with a hoof. “Celestia Herself may know what all that was, but I don’t.”

“Hmm.” Gérard clicked his beak. “Perhaps we were less prepared for our trip than I thought.”

“You could have just flown over everything though, right?”

“Only for so long. We are not pegasi, to create weather where we may. And even then, there is no guarantee that the clouds would be safe, is there?”

“No.” They had found that out only eight months ago, when a ravenous stormfront hunted them for days before finally dispersing. Sky had spent most of his waking hours leading it astray.

“Tch. I fear this expedition was fated ill from the beginning.”

“Not ill enough,” she growled.

“Yes, if we had failed at some step earlier…” He sighed. “But failure is not so clean, is it? It catches and drags down everyone. It mires and muddies and pollutes. Like this swamp.” He waved a talon, dried mud cracking off and crumbling as it scattered across the moss. “It is very much a metaphor for the war. A good idea, a better path to avoid danger...only to find that you have engaged something far larger than you ever thought.” Gérard looked at her thoughtfully. “I think it is telling that it is you that found the way out, and not I.”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” There were hints there, to be sure, but she was too tired to try and tease the meaning from his monologue.

“I suppose not. You have not lived the war from my side.”

“I’ve lived it enough from mine.” She started more water to boil on the fire. Gérard didn’t seem to mind the mud, but it was driving her to quiet madness. Even though she felt like she could drop into sleep right there, if he insisted on talking at least she could spend the time getting clean.

“Hmm.” He was silent for a while, not looking at her, or at anything in particular. Finally though, he asked a question. “When you win, what do you think Equestria will want from us?”

“What?” She goggled at him. “We just want you to stop killing ponies!”

He shook his head at her. “But you will have won. Surely there will be prizes, concessions…”

“No!” She stared. “We don’t want anything but peace.”

He stared back, his normally fierce gold eyes dimmed with exhaustion and pain. And he looked away first. “Perhaps it is so,” he murmured. “But that is not how we think.”

“I don’t think it’s too much to ask!”

“It is not enough.” Gérard stirred restlessly. “I believe you when you say that is all you want, and yet the thought of Equestria asking nothing at the table fills me with terror and dread.”

“What? Why?”

“Because to ask nothing means you intend to take everything.”

Suddenly she shared Gérard’s horror. Not only at the idea that Equestria would wage such total war, but at what could result from the gryphons thinking that. She had no political experience, but none was needed to understand what desperation could drive.

“But...surely someone will understand. You understand.”

“I believe what you are saying, but my instincts still scream otherwise.” He waved a talon vaguely. “It would take more than words to show that your intentions were...honorable.”

“Like what?”

“I have no idea,” Gérard murmured. “Aquila himself, perhaps, descending from his Eyrie. It is simply too strange to swallow whole.”

“I’m sure Princess Celestia will think of something.” She was torn between being glad it wasn’t her responsibility, and needlessly chewing over this new worry.

“Someone needs to. Else we will simply make the same mistakes all over again.”

Know The Risks

Gérard’s limp was far more pronounced. She was privately surprised he was walking at all, given what he’d been through. Beneath those feathers and fur had to be more bruises than she could count, and the first wounds were only getting worse. He had to be near his limits, but he seemed more grimly determined to press on than ever.

It was the conversation, of course. She had heard his peculiar calm tone last night, and knew that he was deathly afraid. Panicked, even, though he’d never show it. Which brought her around to considering him as she picked her way through a blessedly mundane swamp. He had to be terribly important, of course. They wouldn’t send just anyone on a secret mission deep into Equestrian territory, and she doubted every gryphon soldier had Gérard’s speed.

Nor, did she imagine, was every gryphon’s wife target enough to begin a war.

And there was his certitude that this war was all but over. It wasn’t just an opinion - he knew. It was a pain that wounded him as much as the gouges in his wing and side. Somewhere in there was whatever drove him to keep going, making her wonder how sane he really was. She could still hear that hysterical laugh from when he first saw her maps, the sound of someone tottering at the edge of their breaking point.

Rose really did not want Gérard to break. Not while she was around, certainly. Every few minutes she glanced back, expecting each time to find him stopped or collapsed, but he stuck with her as she led him south, the swamp turning more boggy than muddy. Still his beak was closed tight, and his focus seemed to be on the horizon rather than her.

Eventually she couldn’t take it anymore. She stopped and turned to face him as he slowed to a halt, blinking at her. “You should take a break.” When he didn’t reply except by clicking his beak, she tried again. “You can’t possibly go much further without collapsing. You won’t do any good if you can’t move at all.”

He said something in his native tongue, then shook his head. “It is a saying. I can rest when I die.”

“Are you trying to kill yourself? Because you’re going to.”

“My life does not mean much. Nor does my death.” He sighed. “But my duty...I do take your point. But I will have time to rest once we are on the raft. Until then I will not.”

She snorted in frustration before turning and heading off again. He seemed to flip between irritating and sympathetic without any warning, every time she ran up against one of the unseen walls in his mind. Gérard reminded her more of a particularly difficult foal than an experienced soldier.

He was silent the rest of the day, and therefore so was she. Her friends tended toward the rambunctious, with story and song being their constant companions, so Gérard’s reticence gnawed at her constantly. Silence did little for her state of mind.

By the time they halted for the evening her nerves were jangling. It didn’t help when she turned around after setting up the tent to find him gone, having silently vanished into the wilderness despite the injuries. She scowled at empty air and busied herself picking mushrooms, muttering nothing in particular under her breath.

But as time stretched on and the sky grew dark without any sign of him, she began to worry. It was hardly safe out there, and in his shape he might have simply dropped from exhaustion somewhere in the wilderness. As alarming as Gérard was as a traveling companion, it was better than being alone. She lit a fire and puttered about, tidying up what little there was at the camp, and was just about to go looking for him when he limped into the circle of firelight.

Gérard was wilted and spattered beak to tail in mud, and underneath the stench of bog he reeked of blood and death. The smell mostly came, though, from what was on his back, a bloody hide bundle tied with creeper. Any relief at seeing him evaporated as he dumped the bundle by the fire, sending her dancing a few steps back, gagging at the charnel scent.

“My apologies,” he said tiredly. “I will need supplies and it takes a fire to preserve them.”

“No, I understand.” Rose said, breathing shallowly. “You...you do that.” She retreated into the tent, shivering convulsively. She hated it, and yet she knew she’d have to get used to it eventually. With how far they had to go, even if Gérard decided to give up and head back to civilization with her, the gryphon would have to eat more than a few meals. And he could hardly survive on fruits and mushrooms.

Wrung dry, she hunkered down at the back of the tent and tried to put all the images of death and violence out of her head until morning. But all night the bundle on Gérard’s back kept transforming into the corpses of her friends, watching her accusingly. Eventually she staggered out of the tent in the early morning, dry and muzzy and aching, only to nearly trip over the gryphon where he lay sprawled out next to the fire.

He opened a weary eye at her as she rebounded and headed in the other direction, half to get away from him and half to dunk herself in water until she felt more equine. By the time she returned, Gérard was up and about, disassembling something he’d built over the fire out of the remains of the broken tent. The strips of meat, now devoid of butcher’s trappings and smoked to a uniform brown, still made her queasy but not as disturbed as she’d been last night.

The gryphon looked like she felt, worn out and dirty and not at all ready to face the day, but he hauled himself off to the stream without a word as soon as he’d finished stowing his supplies in his saddlebags. Eventually she thought to start packing herself, after looking blearily around the little camp for far too long. She still wasn’t awake.

“How far do we have to go? To the river.” Gérard’s hoarse voice made her twitch, her body too drained to properly startle.

“Five or six miles?” The snake had, for all its danger, brought them further than they would have managed by hoof. “The map won’t be accurate until I’ve been there.”

“Yes, of course. You make them.” He rubbed his beak. “Perhaps we will make it today, then.”

“Maybe.” She had doubts. They were both at their limits, and while Gérard was willing to press on until he dropped dead she certainly wasn’t. But at least riding a raft wouldn’t be half as difficult as slogging through mud and bramble, pathfinding skill or no. She struggled back into her saddlebags while Gerard kicked dirt over the remains of the fire.

He blinked as she headed away from the trickle of water, but followed obediently. “Would that not join with the river we are looking for?”

“Hmm?” She glanced back toward the remains of their camp. “Oh. Yes, but not for a while. This will be shorter.” She didn’t even need to be awake to know that.

“Ah.” That was only response, but his voice came again after a few minutes of tromping through the early morning cool. “Rose,” he began. “Would you tell me about another of your friends?”

She blinked, fighting back images of her nightmares before remembering the conversation from a few days ago. It seemed like it had been longer. “I don’t -” She said, swallowing as her throat suddenly tightened. “Not right now.”

“Tch.” His beak clicked and she glanced back at him, only to find he wasn’t watching her at all. He was staring at the sky, and she followed his gaze, wondering if Kree had returned. But apparently he was just thinking, because after a bit he followed up on the noise. “Than I shall tell you about Kree, if you care to listen.”

“Yes,” she said, in spite of herself. It wasn’t entirely true, but some conversation was better than wearing silence.

“Kree,” Gérard began. “Is Aida’s oldest son.”

Rose nodded vaguely, but it took a moment for that to catch up with her. The hair all along her back prickled as she realized they were being hunted by the son of the most powerful gryphon alive. That was all. She had no more room for worry or fear; she’d already reached her limit on that. But she did pay closer attention to Gérard’s words.

“He inherited much of her talents but his father’s temperament. So yes, he brought great honor to his family and yes, he is one of the greatest fighters and flyers in a generation, but he never learned to lead. Only order.” Gérard clicked his beak softly. “Perhaps I am partly to blame. We flew together, in those early days, and I often took on the tasks he had no interest in.”

“Nopony is responsible for anypony’s actions but themselves,” Rose protested. Again. Though now she was starting to see why he might feel he was.

“You’ve never been in command,” Gérard said mildly. It wasn’t a reproach, just a fact. “And neither has he, not really. He was able to hunt and kill and fight and win, but never to hold the respect and obedience of soldiers by his own talon. Not that his talents went to waste, but it grated at him.”

She looked back at him. “He was jealous of you?”

“Perhaps.” He considered. “Not of my power or position, for those he had, but of my happiness, I could believe that.”

A thought struck her. “He was jealous of your wife?”

Gérard made some sort of noise and then snorted a laugh. There was no humor in it. “No,” he said. “She was his sister.”

“Oh,” she said faintly. There was too much in that to even try and think about.

“We were never really at odds, not even during the War of Houses. Not since Aida commanded us both. But after…” His beak clicked. “I suppose being placed under my command was too much of an insult.”

“Why would it be an insult? I mean, whatever you were doing...it’s important, right?”

“That is exactly the point.”

She looked at him blankly.

“Tch. Perhaps I will try to explain it later.”

She waited, her hooves squishing in mud and her saddlebags catching on undergrowth now and again when the path she’d chosen closed in more than it should have, but apparently he had nothing else to add.

Neither did she. First she had to digest what he’d just told her, not so much about Kree as about himself. He was uncommonly calm about being nearly murdered by his brother in law, and oddly self-effacing about his relationship with Aida, Wing-Commander of All Armies.

Rose hadn’t managed to decide on anything before the sound of running water filtered through the sigh of wind in the leaves of stumpy trees. She found herself trotting faster, following the sound ahead, and Gérard grunted as he matched her pace. It wasn’t long at all before canopy, such as it was, broke and the noon sun shone down on a broad, glittering expanse of lazy water. With it came a breeze and clear air, for once not smelling of mud and bog.

She flopped down on the grassy bank, closing her eyes and basking in the sudden slice of unexpected paradise. Gérard joined her, a rustle of grass and the faint sound of breathing. But it didn’t last. All too soon, his voice came. “We must get a raft together. There will be time to rest when the current is doing most of the work.”

Rose groaned and wobbled to her hooves. As much as she didn’t want to move, Gérard was right. Or at least, reasonable. Though, as her mind caught up with her actions, she wasn’t even sure of that. Until, turning, she saw the position of the sun and realized she’d had a good hour’s nap without even noticing.

Gérard followed her as she scavenged appropriately-sized fallen logs and branches from the surroundings, the gryphon dragging them back to shore one by one. She had to grit her teeth as she watched him limp back and forth, but she could have hardly moved the logs faster. She was no Goldy.

It took a few false starts to make the raft, even if the principle was simple enough. But they didn’t have any rope, and had to make do with the last bits of the ruined tent and whatever creeper Rose could find nearby. Really it was quite simple, just a row of wood lashed together and braced with a pair on either end. But at the same time it seemed more than a little rickety and wobbly. Still, once they pushed it into the water, it floated, even with both of them aboard. She’d still be getting her hooves wet from time to time but that couldn’t be helped.

Gérard pushed them off from the bank with his pole. The current caught the raft and sent it slowly floating past the grassy banks, and the gryphon slumped down on the logs, looking wan and strained under the fur and feathers. Rose felt the same way, aching and tired all over, but at least she could sit now. Even if the logs weren’t the most comfortable perch, with the sun and the breeze the river was almost pleasant.

“Do you feel like talking now, Rose?”

She twitched at his voice, jolted out of a half-drowse. As nice as it would have been, she couldn’t actually sleep, since the raft still might bump into the bank or rocks if she didn’t ply her own pole properly. Though she didn’t feel much like discussing her friends with Gérard, it might help.

“Goldy,” she said, since he had been on her mind anyway. “Golden Glimmer. The orange Earth Pony,” she added after a moment, since Gérard couldn’t possibly know. “He was fun. Funny.” She took a deep breath, finding her voice shaky all of a sudden. “He and Sky and Scarlet would have running pun conversations for hours. And he knew all the songs. Even though sometimes he’d invent new words for them. Usually to tease Sharp Eye for something.” Rose smiled in fond recollection. “Mercy kept us healthy but it was Goldy who kept our spirits up.”

“You said he had a wife and foals at home,” Gérard murmured.

“Yes.” Her smile faded, her hooves hefting her pole to give the raft a shove. “I met them last winter, during a stopover at Trotvale. Adorable little fillies. Well, not so little. They take after their mother and Anvil Ring is nearly as large as Princess Celestia. And they loved their father.” She gave her pole another shove, sending the raft into a lazy spin. Gérard said nothing, simply correcting their spin with a push of his own, the water splashing against the logs of their raft.

The river burbled as it curved its way toward the mighty Baltimare, the river slowly narrowing as they drifted along it. The gryphon was so quiet that she half expected to find him asleep when she looked over, but he was simply watching the skies. For a moment she thought he was scanning for Kree and Ganon again, but then her gaze dropped to his ruined wing. He hadn’t mentioned it much, but he had lost something that was as essential to him as magic was to her.

Rose wanted to say something, but couldn’t think of any words that would help. It was too profound a pain, and there was just too much between them. Even if she worked up to offering him a hug it would probably startle him right off the raft, as it had last time. So she left him to his reverie as the river swept them onward.

It didn’t take much effort to keep the raft properly centered, and that gave her a chance to rest her much-abused muscles. Instead she took out her maps, carefully altering the course of the tributary and drawing the line of their journey another few miles. It was still pitifully short compared to the length they had to go, but it certainly felt like she’d tromped there and back.

As it grew darker, Rose began poling them toward the bank. Even though the river had held no surprises so far, she didn’t want to navigate it in the dark. Gérard stirred and helped, nosing them up against the grassy shore under the shade of a hanging willow. “This was an excellent idea, Rose. How far can we travel by raft?”

“I don’t know.” She blinked, trying not to feel too pleased by his words. “It depends on the river. I do know that the Baltimare is dangerous near the Hayseed Swamps.”

“Too rough?”

“The pegasus scouts said it was too angry.”

It was Gérard’s turn to blink, but after a moment he nodded. “Ah. Like the swamp was angry.”

“I don’t know.” Rose grimaced. “We couldn’t spare any scouts for a better survey recently.” Then she frowned at him. “Didn’t you see it on your way in? You said you followed the river.”

He closed his eyes briefly, clicking his beak, then shook his head. “Tch. It was early, and cloudy, and we were flying high. I can tell you very little, Rose. All I remember from the flight is that it looked like a river.”

Rose frowned, but of course Gérard was no cartographer. Most people didn’t pay close attention to the land they traveled over, other than noticing the occasional landmark. They would just have to find out when they got there - and if the swamp was any indication, go around.

She slept far better that night, and by the time they launched the raft in the morning she felt almost rested, even if everything still ached. Gérard, though, was even more wilted, though there was no sign of it in his voice. “Was all this pony land?” He asked, waving a talon at the wooded banks passing by.

“We don’t really know.” Rose reached for her maps by habit, holding them tight against the breeze that rippled against them. “It may have been before the demon of discord broke the world. But even if it were resettled...we lost so much during the Winter of Nightmares.”

“Yes, forgive me. You said that before.” Gérard rubbed at his beak, looking around at the grass and willows and flowing water. “It is just that this swamp by itself is larger than the whole of our island.”

“Really?” Rose was doubtful. He was used to flying everywhere, after all.

“Two hundred miles from tip to tip, and not much more end to end,” he confirmed. “It always seemed large enough to me, but now…”

“I would have thought it would seem larger, having to walk through it like this.”

“It is not that,” Gérard said quietly. “I am thinking of how much room ponies have to expand. You won the war, with what you have now. In five or eight or ten generations, with all this yours, we will exist only by your leave.”

“That’s not true.” She frowned at him, thrown by the sudden reversion to his political interests. “We don’t want to fight, or invade, or take over, or anything. You know that.”

“Tch.” The gryphon ran his talons over the wooden pole, pushing at the muddy river bottom. “You would not have to. That much strength would be enough.”

Rose shook her head. She just couldn’t see it. The only time she had even seen Princess Celestia was when Rose had managed to attend an address to the soldiers, at the beginning of the war. She could still remember the tone, the quiet pain in the princess’ voice at having to fight. But she wasn’t sure she could convince Gérard.

“Do you - ack!” Rose cut herself off as her pole struck a rock at the bottom of the river, nearly shivering it out of her hooves, and she pulled it up, finding that a few inches of the bottom had been sheared off.

Gérard snorted softly. “I suppose we should pay closer attention. Neither of us are used to sailing.”

“You need a sail for sailing.” Rose dipped the pole back in the water, pushing them closer toward the center of the river. “But rocks are good. It means we might be out of the mud for a while.”

“That would be welcome.” His ears, which had been drooping, pricked up. “I come from a mountain country. I had never imagined so much mud and dirt.”

“Gryphonia? What is it like?”

“The Eyrie is...all sky.” He looked upward, his accent thickening as he spoke. “We have rivers, yes, but they cascade down and down, and in the mornings their mist cloaks us, wrapped around our isle. In every pocket and fold of the white mountains there are deep lakes, ringed in green and teeming with fish. The air is always clear and crisp, and the wind snaps and dances along the slopes.”

“It sounds beautiful,” Rose said, and meant it. It wasn’t just what he described, but the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes. Gérard loved the island.

“Yes.” He closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. “Perhaps one day I will see it again.”

“I hope so.” Especially since if he got to go home, so did she.

This time, it was Gérard’s turn to have the wooden pole nearly pulled from his talons, and he clutched at it before it escaped. “Tch.” He pulled it out of the water, laying it crossways on the raft. The river was straight enough, if flowing faster than before, so Rose followed his example.

But not for long. The noise of the river became louder and ahead of them patches of white began to appear, spume from some hidden rocks. “Perhaps we should go to shore now,” Gérard suggested, looking ahead of them. “Before it gets too rough.”

“All right,” Rose agreed, reaching for the pole. It really didn’t look too bad, but she was hardly a mariner, so it was best to err on the side of caution. Gérard was faster, dipping the wood into the river to push them off to the side, but the moment it struck the river bottom it was torn from his talons, sent bobbing and floating off out of his reach.

The gryphon regarded it mournfully. “Tch. I am sorry, Rose.”

“It’s all right. Maybe…” Her horn lit as she tried to reel it in toward her, but her grasp on it was tenuous at best. Still, she managed to pull it to almost within reach before the raft itself struck something, a sharp jolt that nearly toppled her over the side. It was only Gérard’s grip that kept her on board, his hind claws dug into the logs.

When she looked around again, the pole was gone. The froth of the river was building about them, washing into full rapids as it slid down toward the Baltimare. “Rose!” Gérard had to raise his voice. “We must get to shore!”

“I know!” The rapids had crept up on them, somehow, and the rickety log raft was starting to spin, the foam that rolled over the raft soaking her hooves. She shoved at the rocks as they swept by, trying to push the raft closer to the steep and rocky banks, but the current was too strong. A few tries later, the pole got wedged in something as she pushed it, whipping out of her hooves to strike Gérard full across the beak before vanishing behind them.

“Sorry!” She said, but he didn’t seem to really notice, his head rocking back and then forward again as he clung to the raft.

“It’s coming apart!” He shouted at her. The bindings were stretching as the raft jolted and bumped, the logs rattling madly against each other. The rough rapids were too much for it.

She did her best to brace herself against the wobbly logs as she scanned the river ahead, looking for something, anything that would help them. “There’s an island!” She shouted back, waving at a green-brown smudge further downstream. It was more promising-looking than the carved-out rock that had replaced the banks. And closer. But the raft was far from washing ashore. “We’ll have to swim for it!”

“I cannot swim.” Gérard’s voice was low and level, barely audible over the river. She turned to stare at him, meeting his calm, resigned gaze a moment before the raft smashed into something, the logs scattering and plunging them both into the tumult.

Gérard sank like a stone.

Take Great Care

It was worse than the mud. The water clawed at her with icy talons, trying to drag her down, and battering her against the rocks lying under the surface. She sputtered, gulping air, and then dove down toward where Gérard had vanished.

The first dive returned nothing but a nasty scrape along her hind leg, where it clipped the bottom, but on the second one, against all odds, she managed to lay a hoof on fur. She wrapped her forelegs around him and struggled to the surface, lungs burning. He was oddly lighter than she expected, but she still only just managed to break through the spume. And not for long. The current spun her around, smashing her headfirst into something she didn’t even see.

Rose choked on water as she slipped under again, nearly losing her hold on Gérard, but burning panic drove her, thrashing, to the surface again. Dazed and disoriented, she found she had the gryphon slung over her withers, with no memory of how it happened. She couldn’t think of anything beyond searching frantically for the island and struggling toward it, trying to get into the lee before they were swept past entirely.

Her legs began to go numb from the cold of the water or the repeated impacts with this rock or that, and Gérard seemed to be growing heavier by the moment. Then, suddenly, the current slackened and her hooves touched bottom. She tried to breathe a few words of thanks to Celestia but could only cough as she half-swam, half-waded toward the island’s shore, climbing the last few feet onto a gravel spit and collapsing. Gérard flopped bonelessly beside her and she blinked wearily at him.

He wasn’t breathing.

She scrambled to her hooves, slipping and nearly falling over onto the gryphon. She remembered, vaguely, from ages ago, what to do in such a situation but didn’t know how to make it work with a beak and besides, Mercy had once shown her a better way. If she could manage it. Gérard’s head lolled as she numbly rolled him onto his side, her horn glowing uncertainly. It was as delicate a work as changing a map and, she tried to tell herself, not that far different. But it wasn’t her specialty, and it took another agonizing minute before water suddenly gushed from the gryphon’s beak under the force of her magic and he drew in a shuddering, rasping breath.

Only then was she able to actually think. She was soaked tip to tail and shivering, covered in more scrapes and bruises than she could count, but alive. The island was much larger than it had seemed from a distance, at least two acres, with the upstream end rising to a rocky promontory but otherwise covered with grass and maples. The river still roared from the rapids on either side, but it seemed muted now, or maybe it was just drowned out by the ringing in her ears.

They both still had their saddlebags, though they had been somewhat chewed upon by the river, but Gérard’s bandages had been ripped away, leaving his wounds oozing and bleeding and raw. She blanched away from the sight, and wobbled a few steps. Now that the panic was fading she was tired and cold, the chill biting into her thoughts, making her feel slow and stupid.

“Fire,” she said, mumbling to herself as she staggered her way over to the nearest maple. The supply of fallen wood was meagre but still sufficient to get a blaze going on the gravel, and she huddled next to the flame in an attempt to warm up and dry off. Gérard still hadn’t moved. He breathed, sodden feathers rising and falling, but was otherwise limp and dead to the world.

She could leave. The thought came to her as she scrubbed at her fur, teeth chattering. He could hardly stop her now, and besides he couldn’t swim. She could find a safe passage across, or at least, a less unsafe one, and he couldn’t possibly follow. She could leave and be gone and she would never see him again. Even if Ganon and Kree were out there, searching, it wasn’t as if Gérard could protect her now.

But she would be leaving him to die.

She wasn’t going to fool herself. He was battered and half-drowned and half-crippled and Celestia only knew how badly hurt otherwise. Even if he somehow recovered, he couldn’t leave the island without help, and there was nothing on it to hunt. He would starve to death.

Rose bit her lip, looking at the sopping bundle of fur and feather next to the fire, but there was really no choice at all. She could escape, yes, but the cost would be too high. She would never forgive herself.

Deciding was one thing, action was another. The litany of things that needed to be done grew longer the more she huddled by the fire, but it took some time for her to defrost enough to start moving. She set up the tent, thanking Celestia that it and her saddlebags were waterproof, and, despite the ride the river had taken her for, it and the contents were mostly intact.

Gérard’s bags were less well off. She grimaced as she laid the smoked meat strips out by the fire to dry off, since they were the only food he had. The remnants of Mercy’s kit were truly pitiful, but she set them aside anyway, in case she could salvage something of use. And the oilcloth-wrapped box remained wrapped in oilcloth.

Remembering the reverence with which the gryphon had handled that, she was equally careful setting it aside, though it was solid and heavy and didn’t seem at all fragile. Gérard himself did, still limp and unconscious and cool to the touch as she carried him from the gravel beach to the tent, depositing him inside and wincing every time the movement made the gouges in his side and wing yawn open. Reluctantly, she draped her bedroll over him, feeling keenly their lack of supplies. Even the last of the other tent was gone.

The warning grumble of thunder jerked her head up from where she was tending to a second, larger fire, still trying to shake the last dregs of chill from her dunk in the river. There was a haze of dark cloud to the west, and the feel of the wind had changed. A pegasus or a gryphon would have noticed it earlier, she thought, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Other than move their supplies.

Meagre as they had become, two sets of saddlebags didn’t make the tent any more crowded than before, though this time it was Gérard at the back, and herself guarding the entrance, looking out at the firepit as the wind whipped ash out and over the water. Though it wasn’t loud, his labored breathing filled her ears, a pitiable counterpoint to the rush and hiss of the mighty river.

And Rose had no idea what to do. There was needle, but no thread, and the only remaining jars had liniment for treating burns and bruises, which was useless and insufficient, respectively. Mercy would have had him roused by now, and Goldy could have found some herbs or roots to soothe him. And of course, it wouldn’t have been an issue to begin with for Sky Shadow or Scarlet Shimmer.

The rain began to patter down, and Gérard still wasn’t awake. It wasn’t like him. She’d never really caught him asleep, not when the slightest movement seemed to bring him to full wakefulness, watching her with his sharp golden eyes. But he hadn’t stirred for hours, and she didn’t think even a near-drowning would put him out for so long. She gave the tousled blue mane a tentative prod, half afraid that he’d just react, lashing out without ever waking up. But when he didn’t stir, she gave him a harder poke, trying to get some reaction from the gryphon.

His eyes snapped open.

She tried to jerk away but he had already seized her foreleg, clinging to it as if he were still drowning. “Peidiwch â wrthod fi, fy annwyl.” His liquid words were earnest, if incomprehensible. He pressed her hoof against his cheek, and she stared at him. He wasn’t cool anymore, but hot, burning feverishly under his fur. “Nerys, Nerys,” he sighed, and closed his eyes again.

Rose stood awkwardly for a moment until the grip loosened, and then she backed away, all the way out of the tent and into the rain. After a moment, with the whirling drops being flung in her face by the wind, she relaxed, if only a little. So far as fevered hallucinations went, mild affection was harmless, if a bit embarrassing. But if he attacked her, even in his condition…

She danced nervously from one hoof to the other, bending her head against a stronger gust of wind, and then ducked back inside. Unless she was willing to turn Gérard out into the storm, or brave it herself, there was nothing to do but hope.

He was still sleeping when she checked on him. Peacefully, she thought at first, until she saw the damp tracks of tears on his fur. She rubbed at her throat, feeling as if she were somehow intruding on him, no matter that it was her tent and her bedroll. And no matter that it was his fault she was stuck with him.

But as time wore on and he didn’t stir again, even when thunder cracked nearly on top of them, she screwed up her courage and lofted the canteen to try and pour some water down his throat. Gérard’s presence, even if unwelcome, had been company, but now she was completely alone. And despite all her maps, she was quite lost.

As the rain battered against the tent fabric, she didn’t have anything to do but think. She tried to sleep first, since all her bruises had caught up with her and everything ached except her horn, but the gryphon’s breathing was just labored enough that it kept her on edge, not quite awake but nowhere near sleep. Finally she sat up, rubbing at her eyes and looking down at him.

Now she could smell the sickness coming off him in the enclosed tent, along with the fever heat. But all she could do was open the tent flap partway, no matter the storm outside, to get some fresh air and ply him with the canteen again. There was only one other thing she could think to do to help him, and that would have to wait until the storm passed. Scarlet could have started a fire in the downpour, but she couldn’t.

It was silence that woke her, heart hammering, and she didn’t even know what had frightened her so until she heard Gérard breathe again, after far too long a pause. Her muscles protested as she shook her head muzzily, bruised and cramped and not even remembering falling asleep, and she wobbled out of the tent to wake up.

There were stars out above, shining through the occasional hole in the cloud cover, but after her awakening there was no chance of returning to sleep. And there was Gérard to attend to. Once again she started a fire in preparations for treating Gérard’s wounds, boiling water to clean it and scavenging moss to catch the runoff so it wouldn’t dirty the tent.

She was perhaps halfway done when he grunted and opened one golden eye to peer at her before closing it again. “My beak hurts,” he said, his tone light but his voice raspy. “How is that even possible?”

“”Well, I did smash it with a pole. And maybe there was a rock or two,” Rose said, giving Gérard a relieved half-smile. “I don’t think you even noticed. But it’s probably mostly fever. You should have stopped and rested when I told you to.”

“Tch.” He was silent then, and for a moment she thought he’d gone back to sleep. But then he spoke again, his tone far different than before. “You should have left me,” he told her.

“What?” She blinked at him, startled.

“You still should. Go home, Rose. You owe me nothing.”

“Maybe not!” She said tartly. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to leave you to die, either.”

She didn’t get the satisfaction of a reply. Either he didn’t have one, or was already gone again because his talons, which had been clenched, relaxed. Rose frowned at him, sighed, and continued her work. He wasn’t lucid the rest of the night, twice rousing enough to call her Aida and talk at her in his native tongue, and once to call her Nerys. She, on the other hoof, didn’t get another minute of sleep.

The dawn light was filtering through the maple canopy and casting leaf-shaped shadows on the tent when Gérard groaned, rasping incomprehensibly before managing clear Equestrian. “Help me up.”

“No. You’re not in any shape to go anywhere.” Rose gave him a scowl.

A hint of humor gleamed in his eyes. “I do not plan on traveling, I just do not want to make a mess of the tent. Help me up, please.”

“Oh.” She helped him up and out of the tent, leaving him in privacy to refill the canteens yet again. With the amount of water she was going through, she was obscurely grateful that they hadn’t been ambushed in the badlands. Then she shook her head at herself. Surely things weren’t so bad that such a small morsel was something to be grateful for.

When she returned she found him half-in, half-out of the tent, rubbing wearily at his beak. “I’m as weak as a day-old hatchling,” he complained to her, heaving himself over the bottom flap before she could move to help. “Did any of my food make it?”

“Yes…” His mannerisms seemed off, but then, she could hardly blame him under the circumstances. She retrieved his saddlebags from under the bedroll and averted her eyes as he snapped down a strip of meat, followed by practically emptying the canteen. “Most things did, except the raft.”

“Good,” he said. Then, after a moment, his voice came again, this time completely different in tone. “Why are you still here?”

“What?” She drew back, stung. “I’m trying to take care of you! I would have thought you’d want me to stay!”

“I do,” he said. “Desperately. But for your own sake you should not.” The gryphon sighed and lowered his head to the tent floor. “Forgive me, Rose. I must seem most ungrateful. I thank you a thousand times, but I do not understand why you have done it.”

“Why? Because it just wouldn’t - “ She cut herself off. He was asleep again. Rose let out a slow breath and yawned, leaving him the tent as she stretched her abused muscles, walking slowly across the sun-dappled grass of the island. After so many days moving at double pace it was nice to be able to walk normally for once, simply meandering through the maples. Not far, of course - the island wasn’t that large. But at least the rocky spur gave her a good view east and west, upstream to where more clouds were gathering and downstream to where the Baltimare stretched, calm and gleaming in the morning sun.

It was easier to think there. Or at least, it wasn’t as oppressive as being stuck in a tent with a fevered and incomprehensible gryphon. Unfortunately, the dawn light didn’t reveal anything new. She was still far from home, Gérard was still too sick to be left alone, and there were still too many dangers for her to venture out unprepared. And she had bruises on top of bruises, as well as a mass of scabs, to convince her to be careful about her next move.

Carefully, she went back down the rock face.

Gérard’s fever seemed to get worse over the course of the day. His breathing, still raspy, become more labored, and he never quite woke, just stirring restlessly every once in a while. She poured cold water from the river over his brow and more over his wounds, scrubbing them with raw telekinesis out of a lack of anything else. The rest of her time was spent praying to Celestia that she wouldn’t be forced to watch him die under her care.

Hour after sleepless hour passed in a tent that reeked of wet fur and sickness. The rain swept in again, pattering over the tent in slow waves and carrying with it a breeze that did little to stir the stale air of the tent. But she didn’t dare take a break, for fear that something would happen while she was gone. She even resorted to grinding some of Gérard’s rations with an improvised mortar and pestle so she could make him swallow a sort of meat paste.

The setting sun turned the clouds to rippled sheets of iron, only occasionally visible through the driving rain. It was miserably picturesque, which matched her mood perfectly as she hunched next to Gérard, nerves strained to the limit as she waited to find out if he would live or die.

It had just turned to full dark when, going to wet the fur and feathers on his head once again, she found him soaked in sweat, his breathing easier, and his eyelids flickering. She almost collapsed right then, exhaustion crashing in just after the realization he was out of danger, but she stayed awake long enough to pour the last of the canteen down his throat before dropping down next to him. Breathing the sour smell of sweat, she closed her eyes.

That time, he woke her by trying to leave the tent rather than the other way around. In fact, he woke her by toppling over onto her, his front half already out of the tent but not quite ready to support him.

“My apologies, Rose.” His voice was simply hoarse, rather than strained. “I am still not quite myself.”

“Mmph.” She had something more eloquent in mind, but that was all that came out as she rose to her hooves, pushing him the rest of the way out of the tent. She had completely lost track of the time or day, and the rain spitting down from the clouds overhead helped not at all. Even if she wasn’t awake, she needed to get out into the fresh air. The tent stank.

Even leaning against the maple tree and under its canopy, the wind flung drops into her face, waking her up almost against her will. Gérard joined her, leaning against the other side. His words caught her mid-yawn.

“You have made things very complicated.”

Her muzzle snapped shut. “Me?” She demanded, glaring at the tree between them.

“A gryphon would have taken advantage of the situation,” Gérard, his tone of voice still odd and off. “By any sane measure you should be far away by now, and I would be dead. Yet, we are both here.”

“Sorry, I’m not a gryphon,” Rose snapped. “I didn’t think about how inconvenient it would be for me to save your life.”

“Of course not.” Gérard’s voice dripped with irony, not at her, she thought, but at himself. “But I am now at once indebted to you for your care and caring, and committed to my mission, my kingdom, and my people.”

“So?”

“So,” he agreed. “I must find the balance between honor and duty.” He sighed. “Compass Rose, I can no longer claim you as my prisoner. My debts to you are too great. Go, and when the war is over, I will do what I can to redress the balance.”

“No.”

“What?” Startled, he peered around the tree at her.

“You’re half dead and I’m half awake and neither of us are going anywhere for a while.” She scowled at him, irritated for no reason she could put a hoof on. “So, no.” She stalked over to the tent, opening all the flaps despite the rain. It was the only sensible thing she could think to do.

“Rose.” His voice came from behind, pained and pleading. “I do not understand. What have I done to anger you?”

She turned around, opening her mouth to tell him something, anything...and then balked. “You first!” Rose waved a hoof in poorly-directed frustration. “I don’t understand either! Why are you so upset at me for helping you?”

“Rose,” he said, and then stopped. He wobbled his way toward her and planted himself on the ground next to her, rubbing at his beak. “I am not upset at you,” he said at last, his voice weary. “And I am not upset that you helped me. But I am your enemy, and you helped me not when you were constrained to, but when you should have done the opposite. And you continue to do so. So either you are a traitor, which I do not believe, or you have completely surrendered, which I cannot imagine. Or you are insane, which is absurd.” He held a talon out toward her. “So what am I to think?”

“That none of that matters!” Rose shook her head at him. “Whether you’re an enemy or a captor or...whatever. Maybe if you were a horrible monster...but you’re a person, and you needed help. That’s all that matters.”

“I am glad I am not a horrible monster,” Gérard said, a glint of humor appearing in the gold of his eyes. “That was beginning to worry me.”

“That isn’t funny,” Rose said with a flat, repressive look.

“Oh, but it is,” Gérard sighed. “I have no wish to play the monster. But you must understand, Rose, it is not that I am upset. It is that your actions make no sense, and all my years of experience are telling me that is because you are working up to something extraordinarily dangerous.”

“But I’m not,” she protested, without vehemence. She was beginning to understand why he was acting so oddly now, even if his reasoning was alien. “It might not make sense to you, but to me - to ponies - it’s just the way it is. I - we - don’t worry about honor and duty and enemies and all that so much. If someone needs help, you help them.”

“Even if they’re a horrible monster?” Gérard murmured, his eyes fixed on her.

Rose bit back the immediate yes, because she wasn’t at all sure that was the case.

“Forgive me, Rose, that was a poor jest. I know it can be complicated.”

“It shouldn’t be,” she said reluctantly. “But it can be.”

“It is,” he said firmly. “For me the complication is this. I have a debt to you and an obligation to your friends, and this I must pay. But I have my duty to The Eyrie and to Aida, and my comrades-in-arms fallen under my command. And that is a duty I must discharge. I cannot do both; one contradicts the other.”

“Well, which one is more important?” She asked, though she imagined if it were so simple Gérard wouldn’t be in what seemed nearly physical pain.

“Which is more important, your heart or your lungs?” The gryphon clicked his beak softly.

She laughed, a short, sharp exhalation. “So which am I, the heart or the lungs?”

Gérard cocked his head at her, his expression unreadable. “The heart, most certainly.”

Rose blinked, quailing away from the intensity of his gaze. She didn’t feel up to picking apart that reply. Instead she averted her gaze, rubbing at her throat. “Is that why you tried to send me away?”

He stirred a bit, as if the question bothered him. “I know I cannot settle my debt to you that way. I can only keep from transgressing more than I have. You belong elsewhere, among ponies, not tangled in my mess.”

“It’s a little late for that,” Rose said, and couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her tone.

“I cannot unmake my decisions,” he said helplessly. “Nor could I choose any differently. Believe me, Rose, I wish it might have been otherwise.”

“I know,” she said, regretting the barb. It wasn’t like he was any better off than she. “I’m sorry.”

He waved a talon vaguely, a little flutter at the edge of her vision. “I have earned the rebuke.”

“No, I -” She cut herself off, abandoning the line of thought. “All right. I think I understand.” The strain he was under was an alien thing to her, but she could still grasp it. And more importantly, see it in his face and hear it in his voice.

His beak clicked, softly, but that was all the reply he made. Rose watched the river, still trying to digest all that he’d said. At least, until his voice came again.

“Your turn.”

Rose blinked and gave Gérard an apologetic look. “Of course.” She took a moment to think, while the gryphon waited patiently. “The thing is,” she began, “for us there isn’t any of this debt or duty or obligation, not like you have. We just…do what we can for each other. Our herds, our communities. And when someone helps you, you show you’re grateful, but you aren’t indebted to them. The only expectation is that you share your special talents with your community. That’s how ponies work.”

“Tch.” The noise wasn’t aimed at her. She wasn’t sure it was aimed at anything in particular, beyond the words themselves.

It took her a moment of struggle for the next part, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to admit what was in it. “And you don’t reject somepony in your community. It’s hurtful to tell them to just go away.”

Gérard didn’t reply at first, one talon scratching at the ground. “Ponies are not alone very often, are they?” He asked at last.

“No.”

“So you lose all your friends, and the only one around is me...and I make for a very poor pony indeed.”

“But you’re not a pony,” she ventured. “And I’m not a very good gryphon, at that.”

“Aren’t we a pair. I’m upset you’re not a gryphon; you’re upset I’m not a pony.” He chuckled softly, a throaty rumble. “Is it any wonder we are at war?”

“Mm,” Rose said. If simply being nice at the wrong time made Gérard uneasy, she could only imagine how threatening Equestria entire would be to a whole kingdom of gryphons.

The deluge returned, driving them back into the tent. Rose took the opportunity to dig food out of the saddlebags, chewing on the mushrooms she’d picked while Gérard gave his meat a few desultory gnaws.

“I still must ask when you will leave.”

Rose lifted her eyebrows at him, since her mouth was full of mushroom.

“I know.” Gérard clicked his beak. “I have not forgotten our conversation. But I have kept you against your will, and now I no longer am. I cannot imagine that you would rather have my company than that of proper ponies.”

“You’ve overlooked something,” Rose said, swallowing the remaining mushroom. “At least I think you have.”

“I’m sure I have,” Gérard agreed. “But what is it?”

She retrieved her maps again, spreading out the appropriate one between them. “We’re here,” she said, pointing a hoof at the tiny island glyph she’d drawn in where their river met the Baltimare. Then she slid it back along their line of travel to the camp, and then all the way to where she’d left town what seemed like long ago. “Here’s the closest Equestrian town. Almost three hundred miles away.”

“Oh.” The gryphon sounded chastised.

“And it’s all wilderness. And I’m a pathfinder, not a fighter. And there are things out there that are more than a threat to a lone pony.”

“But -” Gérard snapped his beak closed on the rest of the objection. “Threat to a pony, but frightened by a gryphon.”

“Right. So the question is, are you willing to trek all the way back with me?”

He closed his eyes. “I am sorry, Rose,” he said, sounding genuinely regretful. “But I must return. And as soon as possible.”

“Why? I mean, you can’t possibly make it where you were going before, not for ages.”

“No. But there is still Kree, and the others at camp.”

“But...won’t they be taken care of when they go home? And talk to, um, Aida?”

The gryphon’s eyes opened wide in alarm. “No! I must reach Kree before he returns to Aida.”

She frowned at him. “Is this one of those honor things?”

“Perhaps.” Gérard rubbed wearily at his beak. “If Kree returns without me, our task undone...he will be guilty of, and responsible for, much. But if it is I who return, it is I who am responsible, and anything Kree has done will be between him and me.”

Rose stared. “But why would you do that? He killed my friends! He tried to kill you!”

“Aida has already lost her daughter,” Gérard said quietly. “She does not need to lose her son as well.”

Don't Go Alone

“What are you even planning to do, once you get there?” He’d sunk into a sort of melancholy reverie after answering her, and she didn’t want to leave him to it. “Just...fight with Kree? Or what? And will he still even be there, after weeks and weeks?”

“I suspect he will be. To his mind, there is opportunity...may I see your maps again, Rose?”

She retrieved them wordlessly, and he took one - not the one she was recording the journey on, but the one that showed wind patterns. “He will be finding these out.” Gérard traced a talon over the symbols nearest the gryphon camp. “And setting up forward posts, a chain of them here.” He swept the talon up toward the pony settlements, along the line of the most favorable currents. “Once that is done, I am certain he will request more soldiers. Or he may begin raiding himself.”

Rose flinched. The border settlements weren’t completely undefended, of course, but they didn’t have anyone who would be able to deal with gryphons in force. On the other hoof, she had to wonder why that hadn’t been the goal from the beginning, and gave voice to her question. “If you could do that, why haven’t you before?”

“Because we can’t do that.” His beak clicked. “It takes time to send ships around your patrols, approaching the coast against the prevailing winds and best currents. Too much time for a true force to be away from the front.”

“And Kree doesn’t know that, does he? Or at least, doesn’t see it as a problem.”

“No,” Gérard agreed. “And a year ago, it might have been a good idea, if we had known the lay of the land.”

And he’d said as much before, back when he’d seen the maps in the first place. “All right, well, that still doesn’t answer my first question.”

“Tch.” He deliberately rolled up the map, offering it back to her. “I do not know. That depends on him. And on those who would be loyal to me over him.”

“Will most of them be?”

Gérard’s fierce gold eyes fixed her in place. “You are wondering,” he said in a soft voice. “Whether it will be safe for you.”

“Safer than three hundred miles of wilderness, at least.” Rose stowed the maps in her saddlebags. “I don’t have many options.”

“You would be as safe as I,” he said uncomfortably. “Which is little enough promise. I only wish I could offer you more.”

“Gérard,” she said, and his ears pricked forward, predator-sharp focus fixing on her in an instant. “I know - I trust you’re doing the best that you can. So am I. And we both know that might not...work out well, all the time. So I trust that you’ll tell me what you think. Should I, can I walk into that outpost with you? Or should I take my chances and go home?”

“That is the first time you have used my name.”

Rose blinked. “What? No, I - “ She stopped. It was true, now that she thought of it. The syllables had been unfamiliar on her lips when she’d pronounced them. She frowned, feeling as if she’d slighted Gérard somehow, but he didn’t give her much time to reflect.

“Rose,” he said. “I want you to come with me very much, but all my reasons are selfish. I am not certain I would be able to find it without you, and...I would be glad of the company.”

The last came out oddly coy, and she gave him a long look. He ran his talons along his beak for a moment, not quite meeting her gaze, and then dropped his forepaw to focus on her all at once.

“If you were a gryphon,” he said. “I would know how to go about this. I could total up our debts and obligations, and know what I am asking. I could call you a comrade-in-arms...but you are not, and would not want to be.” He gestured vaguely, taking in the tent, the wilderness, and the two of them. “You are a pony, and you do not share my honor, or duty, or obligation. There is nothing here to tell me under what propriety I can treat you.”

“How about as a friend?”

Gérard’s eyes flickered with uncertainty, and the half foot of tent between them suddenly seemed an unbridgeable gulf. “What can a friendship be when we do not know what we are to each other?”

Rose understood then, if only in a vague, half-formed way, the murk that Gérard was trying to feel his way through. She wanted to reach out and help him, to show him a path, but it wasn’t so easy as reading a map.

He decided to follow her anyway. “Trust is nothing if it does not go both ways. If you can trust me with your life, certainly I can trust you with my integrity.”

She nodded, feeling on one hoof he was being far more formal than need be, and on the other that his integrity was altogether more important to him than his life. “So…”

“So. I would like you to come with me, Rose. But it is a thing that I want, not something I can justify to you.”

“That’s...honest enough,” Rose said, shying away from the naked pain in his voice. “Well, we’re not going anywhere yet. You’re going to stay here and heal until you can take more than ten steps without keeling over.”

“Or my food runs out.” Gérard’s beak clicked as he accepted the change of topic without protest. “Tch. I should be ready for travel in a day or so. Aquila knows I’ve had my fair share of injuries before.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. Granted, Gérard was tough, but he was as much flesh and blood as she was, and she was still aching. “We’ll see,” she said skeptically. “For now, you rest.”

He sputtered a laugh. “As you say.” That, apparently, was good enough for him since he simply dropped his head and closed his eyes. Rose watched, startled, as he fell asleep on command. With all the trouble she’d had managing a proper night’s sleep, she envied him the skill.

Despite the rain still drumming on the fabric of the tent, she poked her muzzle out of the front flap and looked out at the grey curtains surrounding them. And she shivered.

She wasn’t quite sure she could call him a friend, not yet. It was one thing to talk, but it was another thing altogether to really consider putting her life in the hooves - or talons - of someone who had said they were willing to kill her if necessary. And it was another thing to know how to treat him, friend or not, since he was not a pony. Some decision had been made when she’d first used his name, but it was small and subtle and she wasn’t quite sure she had swallowed it.

Water-scented air rippled over her muzzle. It might have been the flip of a coin, but for two things. If Gérard got there soon enough, he might be able to prevent more pony deaths, or even gryphon deaths. And, he had asked. It was just as well that she didn’t have to decide now. It was too big to take all at once.

Then she shook her head, thinking of Gérard’s worries, so deep in other people’s troubles that his own life was at the bottom of the list. It was a humbling bit of perspective. And yet the gryphon seemed just as worried about her as about his own people, in his own obtuse way. Which was, itself, worrying.

Rose snorted rain from her muzzle, pulling free of the ridiculous spiral of self-concern. Instead she turned to Gérard, still more comfortable attending to his injuries when he was asleep than awake. And was surprised to find that they were healing. Raw and deep as they were, they were visibly better than when she’d dragged him into the tent.

She blinked. Gérard was tough, granted, but she’d thought his reassurance was just bravado. Or maybe it had been longer than she thought; between the rain and inconstant sleep, the only thing to mark time was the weight of their supplies. With a frown, she pulled boiled water from her canteen and began rinsing again, the water running clear for once instead of a cloudy, clotted mess.

And that time she noticed something else. Scars, hidden under the blue of his fur. They weren’t obvious, just thin white tracks in parallel, clawmarks over his back and shoulders, some older than others. Of course. Gérard didn’t boast, had no need of bravado. He really had taken his share of injuries.

She covered him with the top flap of the bedroll again, leaving him to heal as rain bounced off the tent. While she should probably take her own advice, she was still too unsettled to drop off like Gérard. Instead she took her keepsakes out of her saddlebags, looking at them for the first time in days.

The river hadn’t done them any favors, since the rocks had chewed away the waterproofing, but the journal and sketchbook were still salvageable, if just barely. But Sharp’s pendant was completely gone, ripped off at some point during her tumble in the river. Her hoof rubbed at her chest where it had lain, a dull ache in her heart where it should have been.

She had a sudden, sad certainty that all her mementos would be gone by journey’s end. All she would have would be memories. Mercy’s charm bracelet clinked softly as she turned it over, not thinking, just looking, and then not even looking anymore.

For the first time she actually felt like talking to Gérard about her friends, about who they had been and how much she missed them. She even had a feeling that were she to wake him, he’d be glad to listen. But she didn’t, of course, packing everything away but Scarlet’s crochet and draping the half-scarf over her neck. The warmth there was only imagined.

When her eyes opened again she was alone in the tent. There was sunlight, finally, casting a patch of brightness through the flap onto the bedroll where Gérard had been. She yawned, gathering herself up, and toppled out into the sun.

For a moment she just basked in the soothing warmth of Celestia’s morning and the scent of a world washed clean after rain. After the slog through so many miles of mud, it was paradise. Then a whisper of sound off to her side made her turn her head, sore muscles still throwing out a few protests.

Gérard was exercising in slow motion. His forepaws stretched and moved, his wings extending with precise deliberation, the injured one drooping. An uninjured gryphon would probably have been an intimidating sight; Gérard just looked lopsided. And it couldn’t be doing him any favors.

“What are you doing?” Rose frowned at him. “You’re supposed to be resting and healing.”

“One must move when muscles heal, or they will not heal right at all.” He kept going through the exercises, smooth and practiced. He’d done it before.

“Celestia,” she murmured. “How often have you been hurt?”

His beak clicked. “You first.”

“What?”

He twisted his head to fix one eye on her. “You know more about me than I about you. I do not think you have missed any of the morsels I have offered.”

She gawked at him. “You were doing that on purpose?”

“On purpose?” His wing flopped and he narrowed his eyes at it. “I am not certain. I know how to be silent. I chose not to be.”

The surprise faded. She had thought his mentions of this detail or that were incidental, offhoof, just because he was comfortable talking with her. But he was actually trying to reach out to her. Which only emphasized the gap between pony and gryphon.

“Well…” She tried to think, suddenly blank of any interesting facts to share with him. “My home is actually near mountains, too. A little village nestled up against the Unicorn Range.” Though she hadn’t been there since the war started, and the request came for her skills. She’d trod through half the country since then, to the north and the south, even spending a restless six months close enough to the front that they had soldier chaperones, but she hadn’t seen her home.

“I suppose they are not the same if you cannot fly.”

“Probably not,” Rose agreed. “Though really I haven’t spent much time on them. I’m still not sure how I avoided that.”

Gérard snorted a laugh. “I still miss mountains. But I do not blame you.”

“What else? Hmm.” She tried to consider what she would tell a pony, or might have in days of traveling, but her mind kept hiccuping over the attack, or skittering to the start of the war.

“A family?” Gérard muttered. “A mate?”

“No, none of that.” Rose shook her head. “I just have a brother, Farcaster. He’s a courier working for Princess Celestia. We...sort of left after our parents died,” she added reluctantly.

“The war?” He peered at her, still going through the motions of his exercise.

“No. The Nightmare Winter.”

“Oh.” His beak clicked shut. Nobody liked to talk about those six months. “I am sorry.”

“Thank you.” Rose watched him silence for a bit, but finally he stopped. Still favoring his right, he limped over to her. She could smell blood on him, but faintly, and thought about chiding him again.

“For the past eight years,” he said. “I have spent nine out of every ten days flying over or fighting through the slopes of Eyrie or the northern coast of your land.”

Rose stared at him. After all, Gérard had no need to boast. “And the tenth day?”

The gryphon gestured with a talon, indicating himself, tip to tail. “Healing.”

“When did you find time to live?

He lifted his eyebrows at her and she raised a hoof, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. It must be different for you.”

“No, Rose.” His voice was gentle. “Though it may not seem so, we do not spend all of our time fighting. Or even much of it. In truth, I do not even like fighting,” he confided. “But I have been in a unique position to keep Aida’s peace from falling apart.”

“For eight years?” Rose was aghast. Ponies had spats, of course, and there was always bickering. But it almost never came to blows, and certainly nothing so terrible could possibly drag on for so long.

“The clans haven’t been united since Gael the Pretender,” Gérard rumbled. “It takes more than kind words to hold them together.”

“The clans? I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

He rolled his head to one side in a peculiarly avian gesture, looking at her. “For how long have ponies been a single people?”

“I don’t know. At least since Princess Celestia and that’s something like...two, three thousand years?”

Gérard made a surprised noise deep in his throat, a sort of a cough, then clutched his beak with his talons as a familiar laugh came bubbling out. It was the dark one, pained and terrifying, with little of sanity in it.

Her first impulse was to take several steps away, to put a safe distance between her and Gérard until he regained control. But she would hardly leave a pony alone that way, so instead she sidled over and put a foreleg over his shoulders.

His hide twitched, crawling under her touch as if trying to slide away from her and he hunched down further, a confused mix of avian and feline noises slipping out from his beak, his talons still wrapped around it as if he could silence himself. She gave him a few cautious pats, and then edged away again since, if anything, she seemed to be making things worse. All she could do was watch helplessly.

All of a sudden he dropped his talons, opening his eyes and taking a deep breath before turning to her. “Forgive me, Rose. You seem to have a talent in giving me shocks.”

“Apparently!” She felt near hysterical herself, relieved that he’d pulled out of whatever dark mood had swept over him. “What was so shocking?”

His tail flipped back and forth, restlessly. “It is just I have spent eight years struggling to maintain the unity of my people in the face of a terrifying power.” He waved a talon in her direction. “And I find that to you that is a history more ancient than our first writings.”

“I...can see how that might be upsetting,” Rose said carefully, trying to consider it from his perspective. Last time he’d broken down it had been because of the map, and what he might have done with it. This time, she could only guess at all the choices he was wishing he could have made. Or made differently.

“Is it any wonder,” he said darkly. “That we fear ponies so?”

She didn’t think they were very fearsome, but he had a point. There was so much that she took for granted that Gérard, that any gryphon, didn’t know. Couldn’t know. And he was trying.

“I think,” she said slowly. “That we should leave as soon as you’re ready.”

Know Your Companions

Gérard regarded the river with bitter skepticism. It was still running high from the rain, hissing and splashing past the island. If anything it seemed more ebullient than when they’d taken their tumble, and his tone was sour as he regarded the torrent. “It seems further to shore from here.”

“I still can’t believe you don’t know how to swim.” Rose had her map out. She’d spent over an hour pacing the island shores, tracing out how to get from there to other side without both of them drowning, but she still wasn’t completely satisfied. “I thought you had lakes and rivers at home.”

“My father can swim like a fish. I was more at home in the air.”

Rose winced, looking out over the water. The words were casual, but she was keenly aware of how it must have hurt for him to be grounded. “Well, this time you won’t have to swim. Or try to, anyway.” She stowed her maps back in her saddlebags and waded out fetlock-deep in the island’s lee before clambering onto small rock. “Just follow me.”

He did so. The concept was simple enough; just follow submerged rocks from the island to the shore, just like a ford. But the path was hardly straight, and none of the hoofholds at all visible. She had the benefit of her talent and her magic to make her surehoofed, but Gérard was walking it blind, following her lead, and she was relying on his formidable agility to match her knowledge.

She went slowly, the water chilling her hooves and tugging at her playfully, as if trying to get her to swim. Each step she paused, looking back to see that Gérard had managed the hidden rocks and juts and outcrops, walking in her hoofsteps. From a distance it would have seemed like some strange magic, a gryphon and a pony walking across a river as if it were solid.

Mostly solid. Gérard slipped, once, on a rock that he’d gripped at just the wrong angle, and she cringed as he scrabbled against the current. But he recovered, took a breath, and nodded at her to continue.

It was a long, difficult crawl, more for Gérard than herself. The only path she could find arched back upstream and then meandered down it, with no regard for haste. There were a few infuriating gaps that, had the river been calmer, she would have risked jumping, but with that and Gérard to consider she had was forced to take the longer path.

Celestia’s sun seemed to crawl as they inched their improbable way across the waters. Rose was beginning to think she had underestimated the difficulty of the crossing. It was one thing to have hopped across herself, going as quick as she wanted, but at a deliberate pace all the odd angles made her legs protest, and the sharp edges of rocks dug into her hooves.

It was still better than trying to swim, of course.

Finally she splashed up onto the bank, turning in time to see Gérard make a single prodigious leap, landing next to her a with feline grace marred only by the way he favored his right foreleg. He regarded the river for a moment, then turned to her and gave her a deep nod, almost a bow. “Thank you, Rose. I am impressed.”

“Well,” she said, her ears flicking in embarrassment. “We were just lucky that there was a trail like that at all.”

“What would you have done if there were not one?” He cocked his head at her, curious.

“We would have found another way.” She surveyed the river and the island, then shook her head. “But I’m glad it didn’t come up.” Her hooves dug into the sparse soil wedged among the rocks of the riverbank as she clambered up to where the slope gentled. Gérard followed her, padding up to join her in gazing over the winding ribbon of the Baltimare.

They couldn’t really see that far. Only a few miles downstream the rocky moraine and spreading maples gave way to more marsh, and a haze that blurred the horizon. A few winged shapes flitted about, but they were all birds, with no pegasi or gryphons in sight. It was simply empty, trackless wilderness, beautiful in a raw and dangerous way.

Gérard’s beak clicked softly. “Tch. I am glad I do not have to find my way through this unaided.”

“Likewise,” Rose admitted. Gérard was probably just worried about getting lost; she was more concerned about being eaten.

He glanced sidelong at her. “Along the river, then?”

“In a bit.” It was east, first, taking an easier way down to the Baltimare’s bank than following the rocky, plunging course of the water behind them. After maneuvering through some brush they broke out onto what almost might have been a trail, a swath of loam and dead leaves slanting down through the maples.

It was easy enough going, for once, that Gérard walked beside her rather than behind. She considered him from the corner of her eye while he, in turn, considered the forest, his ears swiveling this way and that, always alert. She may not have started it willingly, but now she wanted to finish telling him about her friends. If she could make herself broach the subject. “I’d...I’d like to talk about Sky Shadow.”

His ears pricked forward and he tilted his head to look at her. “Please do, Rose.”

“Of all of us, he probably could have been a soldier.. He was always...eager, to go after any obstacles we had. He enjoyed the challenge, whether it was dangerous or not. I think it’s a pegasus thing,” she added parenthetically. “They all have a tendency to rush headlong. I think Mercy had to spend twice as much time on him as the rest of us combined.

“But he was always the first one to notice if someone was upset. He stayed up for two days and nights with Scarlet when she had to kill...well, something. I still don’t know what it was, but it attacked us and nopony could touch it.” She shook her head. “When he found out how I’d lost my parents, he went out of his way to be there for me. It’s not like I was a little filly, but still.”

“He cared for you,” Gérard rumbled. “That is no small thing.”

“We all cared for each other. I guess...it was different, with each pony.” She paused for a moment, ducking under a low-hanging branch that only had a single wan-looking leaf dangling from the end. “I also miss...we all worked together. Sky Shadow was the one who charted air currents.”

“I thought maps were your skill? Or, talent?” The gryphon inquired, starting to fall behind as the path narrowed, hemmed in by some thorny undergrowth.

“Oh, I do the maps, but...Goldy knew plants. Scarlet knew magic. Sky was a weatherwind, so he was better at reading the currents than almost anyone else. Sharp Eye was a tracker, so we had some idea of the animal life…”

“I did not realize.” Gérard sounded impressed, and she glanced back to find his eyebrows raised.

“Realize what?”

“I thought that perhaps your friends were…” He seemed to struggle with words for a moment, which she had never seen him do. “Field support,” he finished finally. “But you were all talons on the same paw.”

“Yes, that’s about right.” It was far from a pony saying, but it seemed to fit. “Don’t gryphons work together that way?”

“It takes some time.” His voice was thick with some unidentifiable emotion, making his accent almost incomprehensible, but his next words were more clear. “It happens more often among fellow warriors.”

She canted her ears speculatively. “Did you have friends like that?”

“Only once. A long time ago.”

“Do you want to talk about them?”

Behind her, he chuckled softly. “Perhaps later. I do not think you would find the hunts of young gryphons so appealing.”

“Oh.” She wanted to demur, but with all the good will in the world she wasn’t ready to hear details of a gryphon’s hunt.

“I could tell you instead of Arvel and Glyn,” Gérard offered. “The two that were felled by the bow.”

“I…” Rose swallowed something. At this remove the dead gryphons were tragic, rather than justified, as much victim as victimizer. “Yes. Go ahead.”

“I put them together because their stories are twined. I said your group was like talons on a paw; they were like two halves of a talon. They came to me that way, a pair that did not need to speak or even look to know what each other wanted.” He beak clicked. “I do not know if they were simply friends or if they were lovers, but they would not be separated.”

“That’s - “ She wanted to say it was sweet, but that word - and her imagination - failed her when it came to the romance of two gryphon warriors. “It sounds like they were happy.”

“I think they were. Not the best warriors, but scouts without peer. They enjoyed stalking and tracking.” Then he sighed. “They were the ones that spotted your group. And I do not think it was coincidence they were both felled by the same weapon.”

“Celestia,” Rose whispered, blinking away tears. She didn’t need him to elaborate on that.

“I did not mean to upset you.”

“No, it’s just...” She shook her head. “It’s different when you know about someone who’s been killed.”

“Yes.” Gérard didn’t elaborate, but it made her consider his desire to know of her friends closer. And to consider how it was important to gryphons in general to know their dead.

The river interrupted her thoughts. The trees ended abruptly, the bank no more than a few inches of damp and scoured earth dropping straight to the water. Rose frowned at it. “I hope it doesn’t flood while we’re here. That rain…”

Gérard flicked his ears, lifting his head to sniff at the air. “I am no weatherwind, but I do not think there is any more coming soon. Though the water is louder ahead of us.”

“Well, we’re not going to try a raft here, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“And I was looking forward to another trip down the rapids,” the gryphon murmured, his eyes twinkling.

She snorted. “Just like I was looking forward to hauling you out again. Celestia knows we don’t need to borrow any trouble.” Rose turned away from the water, choosing only roughly parallelled the river’s windings and passing between an oxbow lake and the river proper. The canopy was just sparse enough that there was grass instead of mud, but nothing so difficult as thorns or creeper choked the way. It wouldn’t last. In the miles ahead of them there was mist as well as haze, and the trees turned to dense cypress. They’d be back in the bog soon enough.

Gérard paced patiently beside or behind her, depending on how the trees felt like growing. He was still limping, though it was far less noticeable than before, and all the feathers around the cuts were gone. Though he seemed cheerful enough, she worried that by the time they reached civilization it would take a unicorn healer to properly restore him.

Which wasn’t likely for a gryphon.

As soon as the cypress canopy closed over their heads, all the cheer of sun and fresh air vanished. It wasn’t dark, but it was oppressive, closing in around them and muffling everything but her hoofsteps and the sound of the river. Even the croaks of frogs and whistles of wild birds seemed muted. Gérard, as ever, made no noise. At least until a swath of jagged stumps forced them to detour through a shallow pool of water. “Tch. More mud.”

“I think we’re stuck within it until we reach the coast.” She reached for her maps by reflex, spreading the main one before them. By habit, she shifted the borders of the swamp and added in the patches of maple, subtly changing the details of where they’d been. “And we’ll still have to cross the river at some point, but we can wait for a ford or at least a very calm area.”

“I expect you will find something,” Gérard agreed. “You have not failed me yet. However...” His voice sharpened slightly. “Do keep away from the deep water, Rose.”

“What?” She stopped, startled, and the gryphon extended a talon to point off to the right, into the swamp. After a moment there came a splash from something unseen, but large. She shivered. “What is it?”

“I do not know. It is not stalking us, but I would rather not risk it.”

“Me neither.” Rose turned and changed their path, squeezing between the river and the cypress strands. There were too many deep pools and stretches of green water for comfort, especially if they held something big. Or somethings. Sharp Eye would probably have known what it was, but as it was she had to rely on Gérard to keep her safe.

Which he was certainly capable of doing.

She rubbed absently at her throat, hoping that he wouldn’t have to. Evidence of his hunts was enough for her, and her camp had held enough slaughter for a dozen lifetimes.

He seemed to catch her mood, moving up to shadow her more closely and keeping himself between her and the bulk of the swamp. It was one of those actions that seemed well-practiced, any rough edges worn off by years of practice. And it worked, or maybe it wasn’t necessary, for despite Gérard’s ears twitching wildly from time to time nothing ambushed them other than the occasional stray frog.

Yet it did little for her peace of mind. To the left, the river somehow kept getting louder, and through the dense screen of cypress she couldn’t see why. To the right, the expanse of swamp seemed to swallow light and sound and color, looming facelessly despite being no more than standing trees. And above, the canopy pressed down with a weary grey, muddying Gérard’s white and turning her own fur from parchment to caramel.

It also meant night fell quickly. It seemed to happen between one step and the next, the light going from merely dim to fully dark, lit only by the winking of fireflies. Gérard’s eyes gleamed out at her as she kindled her horn, making her flinch back for a moment before she realized what it was.

“Tch. It is just as well we are already at a dry patch.”

“Yes,” she agreed, with feeling, lifting the tent from her back. Of all their supplies, it was the only one undamaged, and she mentally thanked whatever artisan had labored on it.

“I would prefer no fire tonight,” Gérard said, studying the darkness before turning to help fasten the tent stakes. “I do not wish to stand out in this place.”

“No arguments here,” she agreed, wiping her hooves on the grass and ducking into the tent. She still had a few mushrooms left over and whole bundle of cattails she’d plucked from their path. She knew that she’d probably passed by more appetizing plants, but without Goldy she didn’t dare try anything she didn’t recognize. The gryphon crawled in after her, settling down to guard the front of the tent as he took out his own supplies. But this time, he was guarding her from the outside, not the other way around.

While they ate she brought out the map again, extending the line of their journey along the Baltimare. It was a disappointingly short line, but it was better than not moving at all for three days or more.

“How are we doing?”

“Not that bad. Even with all that happened...the snake and the river between them saved us three or four days, I think.”

“I suppose I am grateful to them, then.” He glanced down at his injured wing and side. “But I hope we will not have any more of these mixed blessings.”

“Me too.” He’d taken the brunt of it in both instances, something she was guiltily grateful for. But she’d rather nothing further happened; simply slogging through a hundred miles of swamp would be difficult enough without any more incidents.

She stowed the map again, letting the light of her horn dim slightly as she crunched down a cattail, swallowing the bland meal while Gerard snapped down morsels of his own food with no more eagerness than she. He had his attention focused out past the closed tent flap, where things croaked and whined and trilled in the darkness, but he immediately fixed on her when she spoke his name.

“Gérard,” she said, giving voice to a question that had been simmering at the back of her mind for days. “Who is Nerys?”

His ears went instantly flat and his tail lashed once before stilling. The gold eyes, fixed on her face, slipped past her to gaze at something off in the distance. The silence stretched out long enough that she was about to apologize for even asking when he spoke, his voice even deeper and more gravely than usual.

“She was my wife.”

“Oh.” Rose didn’t dare say anything else, having stumbled onto something too painfully intimate to even look at.

Gérard came to her rescue. “Talk in my sleep, do I?” He asked, the wry humor in his voice halting her galloping anxiety in its tracks.

“No, you -” She found her voice shaking for some reason, and calmed it. “While you were sick. But I couldn’t understand anything you said; it was all in gryphon.”

“Thank Aquila for small favors,” Gérard chuckled. “Who knows what nonsense I would have filled your ears with?”

She gave him a smile in return, even if it was a bit wan. “You know, if you do want to talk about it…”

“Thank you, Rose,” he said tiredly. “But not right now.”

“Of course.” She let it drop, but still watched him closely, torn between offering him comfort and leaving him be. Despite the humor his entire body drooped, exhausted, but he took a breath and drew himself up, from the tips of his ears to the tuft of his tail, regaining his composure. Soon after, she let the light of her horn sputter out. She wouldn’t have been able to hold it for much longer anyway, and even if she couldn’t give Gérard true privacy, in the darkness he’d at least have his face to himself.

When she got out of the tent in the morning he showed no sign of upset, and if he was silent while she packed the tent that was no different than most other mornings. Still, she felt that there was some slight distance between them, not so much pulling away from her as into himself. Or maybe she was imagining it. Beaks didn’t convey all that much expression, after all.

The surroundings didn’t help. The swamp remained grey and dull and oppressive, and not lifeless enough for comfort. Now and again, rarely and without warning, a deep rumbling noise would come from something in the swamp, never close by but still close enough to keep her on edge. “I wish I knew what that was,” she said, her hoof going again to the place where Sharp Eye’s pendant had been.

“I may find out when I go hunting,” Gérard said. “I will have to, tonight.”

“Then I’ll try and get us somewhere less…” She waved a hoof around at the dense, damp, hazy swamp. “Difficult.”

“Thank you, Rose.” His voice held a note of surprise, tinged with something else. She looked at him curiously and he tilted his head back in some purely avian gesture. “You understood, and did not even hesitate with the offer,” he explained. “Even though I have seen how much it upsets you when I return from a hunt.”

“Well, you do have to eat. I don’t object to that.” But now that he’d mentioned it, it bothered her too. Violence and death still made her shudder, and yet her mind had skipped right over that. It didn’t change what she intended to do, of course, but it did make her feel a little less equine.

“It seems not,” he agreed, checking his saddlebags as she cast about with both eyes and magic. There had to be somewhere that was less drab and dreary, if only by a little. But there weren’t many choices, and in the end she decided to take a path closer to the river, where hopefully they would at least be able to see more than thirty feet. And would find out why it was so loud.

Gérard fell in behind her as she made her careful way toward the sound of water. She could barely trust the grass to hold up under her hooves, and the still surface of dark water on either side of her path held things she didn’t care to think about. In hindsight, she almost preferred the honest mud from earlier.

The buzzing of insects fell behind as they approached the river, driven away by the mist that drifted through the trunks. It was as if they were approaching a waterfall, but she couldn’t see how that could be until they finally reached the edge of the trees, where the wind blew the mist away.

The river was angry.

Beware Rough Waters

Fury roiled off the foam and froth of the water’s surface, saturating each drop of the mist they breathed and each fluttering gust of wind that blew off the unquiet surface. It was not just one river, but a confluence of two. The cool blue of the Baltimare poured in from the west, the muddy brown of the Hayseed thundered from the north, and where they met in a massive spume of indignant rage they refused to join.

Rose had often thought that streams or brooks had their own personalities. Some were cheerful and happy, others slow and sullen. But she had never imagined such an extreme, in two mighty rivers that wrestled and thundered challenge at each other in the roar and crash of water and current. Things too hungry and vicious to be called mere whirlpools formed and vanished between them, sucking down floating branches or entire trees, spitting them out again as wet splinters.

Downstream was no better. Even as they watched the struggling waters gave a mighty heave, the entire fifty yards of raging water jumping toward them and closing half the distance in a blink, sending it spilling off on a completely different course and swamping a new swath of bedraggled vegetation. From here they could see that miles of the swamp had been turned into churned mud, scoured rock, and stubborn trees.

She stared at it, rubbing her throat, and slowly sat, regarding the spectacle. Her mind shied away from what might have happened if they’d rafted into that, but the splintered and shredded debris provided picture enough. The growl drowned out the sounds of the swamp, but didn’t quite cover the occasional horrible splintering noise from somewhere in the maelstrom, making her ears flatten against her skull.

“And here I thought we were looking for less difficult terrain,” Gérard murmured through the noise, sitting down beside her and regarding the mangled expanse.

Rose snorted, though the corners of her muzzle curled up in a brief flash of amusement. “Hush. I’m thinking.”

Gérard lifted his eyebrows at her. “Truly? Are you considering something other than going around this madness?”

“Anger,” she said absently. “Not madness.”

His ears flicked, pointed at her. “That wasn’t a no.”

She swallowed, then swallowed again. The river was as far from inviting as possible, but she could count their choices on two hooves. “I don’t know if we can go around. We’re going to run out of solid land in a mile or two. It’s turning into some enormous swamp lake, and this is the closest shore.”

He lifted a paw. “You need not convince me, Rose. If you say we must go this way, then we must.”

“I’d rather go back,” Rose admitted. “Upriver, and cross somewhere else. But that would add at least a week.”

His eyes closed, and she knew what he was was thinking. Or at least, what he was feeling, torn between her safety and his haste.

“We won’t. We’ll cross here.” He opened his eyes at her and she gave him a wry smile. “Upstream might not be much better. But the land is higher over there, across the river. If nothing else, we’d be out of the mud.”

The gryphon clicked his beak, some of the life returning to his expression. “Tch. For that, I would brave a thousand rivers, be they ever so angry. Though I tell you Rose, I do not see how it is possible.”

“You don’t have a cartography cutie mark.” Rose studied the river as it roared and shuddered and jumped, swaying like the largest snake in the world as it lifted itself bodily from the riverbed and slammed down again as if in challenge to her intentions.

It was a challenge she would have declined, if she were alone and unhurried. If she still had her friends, Scarlet would have been able to calm the river, or at least Sky could have taken to the air and surveyed the true scope of things. But these were all ifs, so she squared her shoulders and stared at the river.

Gérard was blessedly silent as she concentrated, watching the river shift again. And again. And again. Then she nodded. “All right.”

“You have a path for us?”

“Yes. It’s going to be like yesterday, just go from one hoofhold to another.” She turned to him. “Okay, not that simple. But it’s the same idea, only a little more fluid.” Her muzzle twisted at her own inadvertent pun. “Just tell me when you’re ready.”

“If I have learned anything, it is to follow you without hesitation,” Gérard told her, his voice calm. “Lead on, Rose.”

It was only after she’d cantered down the side of the riverbank, splashing into the thin film of muddy water there, that she realized that particular tone of calm was the one he used when he was terrified. She wasn’t settled herself but she paused for a moment as he splashed up beside her, no longer preternaturally silent. That was her only hesitation before slogging as quickly as she could toward a sloping boulder that still had a tree clinging to it, the roots plastered in an unmoving waterfall down the surface and dipping into the swirl below. The growl of the river applied its spurs to her, and she jumped.

Gérard followed her up, moving easier with his talons than she with her hooves, and tilted his head at her inquisitively as she squinted at the writhing mess upstream.

“Wait,” she told him, watching the river. He stirred restlessly beside her, once, and stilled, only the tip of his tail twitching. Then the water shifted again, sending a plume of spray high into the air as the river roared past, blue on their left and muddy on their right, the fight between the Baltimare and the Hayseed parting, ever so briefly, around their boulder. It spat and hissed, spraying them both and making their rock shiver underhoof, but it didn’t quite crest over onto the roots they stood on.

“How?” Gérard asked. “I did not see you cast any spells.”

“I don’t have any spells for this. Scarlet could have done something but she had more power in her left hoof than I do in my entire horn.” She shook her head. “It’s just my special talent.”

“Your mark?” He glanced down at her flank, where her namesake design was obscured by spatters of mud. “I cannot imagine that any amount of training would prepare you for this.”

“Training?” She frowned, still watching the waters. “Cutie marks have nothing to do with training.”

“Then, experience? I thought it represented your profession.”

“What? No!” Rose stared at him. “It’s nothing like -”

The river tumbled and twisted, swerving away as the bicolor torrent braided itself into a contorted knot, a wall of water not thirty feet away. She stepped forward, hooves slipping on the water-slicked roots and sending her sliding and slithering down to splash into the hock-deep mud and water. Gérard landed next to her, wading gamely after her as she sloshed toward the rushing torrent.

She managed to force herself to within a pony’s length before she stopped, the force of the rivers battering at the air, roaring and snarling as the muddled depths loomed impossibly above her. The fury here wasn’t simply heard or felt, it was experienced with every sense at once, seeping into her bones and chilling her more than the water ever could. Gérard stood by her, ears plastered against his head, every muscle tensed.

His beak opened and closed, but any words were snatched away by the water and wind, shredded and gone. She lifted her hoof to put it on his shoulder in reassurance, but to judge by his eyes and ears all she managed was to smear his fur and feathers with mud. Even now he seemed more annoyed than afraid, but he couldn’t possibly be at ease any more than she was.

The timbre of the Baltimare’s growl changed a bare instant before it leapt upward, the unfathomable force of the river bowing into a monstrous arch above them. Mud shuddered and air shivered, the rainbowed shadow of the river above sending a bolt of atavistic fear along her spine. And started her hooves moving.

“Run!” She shouted, though she didn’t know if Gérard could hear her, and followed her own advice by dashing under the frothing, heaving ribbon as it stood suspended above the muddy bottom. The gryphon matched her step for step.

They covered ten feet, then twenty, and Rose pivoted as sharply as she could in the squelching, sucking, ice-cold mud and forged her way east. Her skin prickled as the bow of the river above them swayed and then suddenly dropped. Even expecting it, she squeaked as it boomed down behind them, a wave of displaced mud slapping her haunches. Gérard was right there, shadowing her movements as her hooves flailed for a moment before finding purchase again.

From there it was a relatively short wade to a small hillock of wet and struggling grass, but the threat of the river was at their heels the whole way. She clambered up, panting and clinging to the lone willow. Gérard joined her. He surveyed the riverbed with a wary eye, watching as the Hayseed shoved the Baltimare around, scouring the mud they’d just run across.

“If not a profession, then what?”

She gaped at Gérard. The conversation had gone completely out of her head, displaced by more important concerns, but the gryphon was focused on her with sincere intensity. In fact, she realized as she struggled to recall the thread of conversation, too much intensity.

This had to be his own personal nightmare. He couldn’t swim, and hated boats. He’d already mostly drowned, and the cold mud that they were both spattered in only added its own exquisite layer of misery. And in it all, he could only blindly follow her, since he couldn’t see what she did or even understand what her cutie mark was.

She didn’t blame him for wanting a distraction.

“Well…” She looked away from the unnerving golden gaze, focusing out over their path. Soon enough they’d have to move again. “Our special talents and cutie marks are more than just what we do. Really it’s the other way around. You get your mark when you’re a foal, and from there on out, you’re set.”

“So it is assigned?” He flicked his ears at her, a motion at the edge of her vision.

“Oh, no. You...find it out yourself, as a foal. There’s just a moment when it all comes together and you know what you’re going to be.”

“That sounds terrifying.”

Rose blinked and glanced over at him long enough see he was absolutely serious. “No, it’s wonderful! To know who you are, what you can do and what you can share with everypony It’s something you carry with you your whole life.”

“I think that would be stifling.” His voice was careful, almost hesitant.

She shook her head. “More the opposite. There’s a comfort in being able to rely on your talent.”

Gérard was silent. Only his tail was moving when she risked a glance at him, but the river interrupted before she could add anything more. She led the way off the other side of the island, glad that the gryphon was fast and sure enough to keep up with her on this mad scramble.

Like with the path from island to shore, there was no straight line from one side of the desolation to the other, not unless the rivers actually let them. And Rose was just as glad they were too focused on each other to notice the pair of them sneaking through their duel. She’d never thought of rivers as particularly frightening, but then, she’d never encountered any that might have actually noticed her before.

The crossing was short, but no less nerve-wracking than the other two, with the water thrashing and writhing just on the other side of a small ridge. The two rivers knocked pieces off each other, sending choking, blinding jets of spray across the two of them and soaking them through.

She spluttered her way into a sudden current, snatching at her hooves despite how shallow it was, streaming through a crack in the ridge and into the greater tumult beyond. Gérard, not expecting it like she was, grunted and staggered half a step “Almost there!” She shouted at him, wishing she had the time - and the quiet - to properly warn him of little things like that.

They sloshed and splashed their way to another chunk of rock, carelessly dropped by some glacier in a bygone age and too large even for the wrestling rivers to dislodge. She tottered up the slick surface, shivering from head to hoof from the soaking she’d gotten and the breeze that in no way helped. When she’d picked out the path she hadn’t envisioned it being so cold.

Gérard shivered once, shaking himself and sending muddy drops flying just before the river rolled over and sprayed them once again as it smashed into the base of their rock. He blinked, wiping water from his beak with a resigned expression. “Gryphons,” he said meditatively. “Are not like that.”

Rose made an encouraging noise, spoiled only slightly by her own full-body shake. Despite their surroundings, she really did want to hear what he had to say. If Gérard thought it was important, it was.

“We strive every day to be what we are. We fight, every day of our lives, to be blacksmiths or teachers or architects - or soldiers.” He shook his head. “We have no guide. No marks. Our only talents are the ones we make for ourselves.”

“Now that sounds terrifying.”

Gérard clicked his beak at her. “Tch. It may be less of a comfort but we are not bound to a single purpose.”

“It’s not a single purpose at all,” she protested. “It’s what we’re best at, yes, but we do have other interests and hobbies. You saw Scarlet’s crochet and Goldy’s journal. What would you say if I thought you were limited to fighting and war?”

“I would say you were quite right,” Gérard said easily. “Gryphons become what they need to be, I think. And that is what I needed to be. I do take your meaning, Rose, but it still seems to me a confining thing. Yet you do not seem confined.”

“No…” Rose frowned as she considered the subject, an odd feeling given how heavily she was relying on her talent and her mark at that very moment. “It’s just part of you. Like eating or breathing. It isn’t something that stops you from doing things, it’s more your center that you can reach out from. Like this.” She waved a hoof at the froth and foam about them. “This is terrifying. But I know I can do it. Pathfinding is what I do, what I am.”

“When you say you know, that is not just a phrase. It is certainty.”

“Well, yes.”

“Hmph.” Gérard looked down at his talons where they gripped the rock, his ears flicking back and forth. Her own ears swiveled as the growl of the twin rivers changed subtly, and her head snapped around.

“It’s about to shift,” she said. “We’re going to have to really hurry on this one.”

“Simply tell me where to go, Rose,” he told her, muscles rippling under his hide as he braced himself.

She pointed at a white-barked tree that, absurdly, was still rooted in the middle of a jumble of mud and river gravel. It wasn’t a species she knew or even recognized, but the waters had left it alone enough that it still stood. But unlike their other perches, it was on the river’s bottom and promised to be a miserable stopover.

The waters rolled back over, tumbling past their rock and soaking them yet again as it coiled into a new course, looping behind the tree and granting them a narrow corridor with trembling walls. Rose skidded down the slick rock face while Gérard simply leapt, splashing down just ahead of her, and forged on toward the tree.

She scrambled after him, following his trail for once, splashing and squelching through the mud. The rush of the river reverberated through what passed for the ground, making the thin film of water atop the churned mud quiver and dance. Somehow the waters seemed closer than when she’d approached them before, or maybe just more angry. By the time she was one quarter of the way across Gérard had covered half the distance and paused, looking back. She waved a hoof to gesture him onward, and it was then that the river gave a snort and smashed her across the barrel.

Rose shrieked as the sudden jet of water knocked her down, dragging her along the ground in a horrible, hungry current. Despite her flailing hooves she couldn’t get enough of a purchase to escape the drag, pulling her inexorably toward the muddled, murky wall of the fighting rivers. The frothing surface seemed to bow over her, ready to swallow her up, her hooves scrabbling uselessly at nothing.

Then Gérard was there.

He’d somehow crossed the mud and water in a few scant seconds and his talons wrapped around her leg with an iron grip, hauling her up without any apparent effort and throwing her across his back. Wordlessly, he turned and ran.

She’d forgotten how fast he was. His muscles flexed as she clung for dear life as he covered the distance to the tree, through mud and with her weight on his back, faster than she could have on dry land. And behind them, the river poured in, growling and nipping at his tufted tail, cresting and growing above them until he leapt into the air, landing heavily in the branches of the safe tree.

Below them the waters swirled and muttered around the base of the tree, a slow motion maelstrom rising to the full depth of the river outside the spreading, bare branches. She found all four of her legs were clamped around Gérard, her heart hammering as she gasped for breath. The gryphon was himself puffing from exertion, though not for long as he settled down on a limb that refused to bow under their weight.

“Gryphons,” he rumbled as if nothing had happened. “Don’t know. We don’t have that certainty. We strive against each other and against the world, not to remove our doubts but to learn when to listen to them, and when not to. We have honor, loyalty, and duty to guide us, but it is that struggle which makes us strong.” He twisted his head to look back at her, his beak almost bumping her snout. “You simply know. You do not struggle. And yet you are not weak.”

She gulped air, still trying to recover from such a near thing, and shuddered as she pushed away the image of the water doing its best to swallow her whole. Gérard’s method of distraction had something to recommend it. “It’s not that we don’t compete at all,” she said. “Or struggle at all. You do improve your talents. But strength or weakness…

She stopped as he shifted under her, talons gripping the bark and making her cling even tighter as she slipped ever so slightly, as if the water were pulling at her even here. “I think,” she said a bit desperately, doing her best to ignore her precarious position. “That for us if there’s strength, it comes from how much we can help others. How we can use our talents for everypony.”

“Not for yourself,” he said. “For your community.”

“That’s right,” she agreed. “What you can do for yourself is fine, it’s just not what we really think about.” Then she shook her head. “No, that’s not right. You have to be happy yourself first, and that’s important, but it’s not until you can help others that you really get to be who you are.”

“Tch.” Gérard clicked his beak softly, looking out at the encircling waters. “To us it is not a matter of helping or harming. What you do is a reflection of who you are, rather than a piece of it.”

It seemed a subtle enough difference to Rose, but if Gérard thought it was important then of course it was. She tried to focus on it, but as her eyes traveled over their perch another thought intruded. “Could you move that fast again? Like you did getting here, with me on your back?”

“If I must.” He didn’t sound enthusiastic, shifting again on the branch and reminding her that he was still far from fully healed.

“Well, if we wait for the right moment you’ll be able to make the shore from here.”

“Tch.” His ears swiveled forward. “We shall do that.”

“Good,” she said with feeling. “That’s much, much shorter...and I’m afraid the rivers might have noticed us, now.”

“The very land seems to object to us,” Gérard sighed. “How do you ponies tame it?”

“I’m not sure.” Rose blinked at the back of his head. “Goldie would have known...it’s more something Earth Ponies do. It’s something they want to do,” she added, trying to connect the conversations. “Because that’s part of who they are.”

He flicked his ears and nodded, tilting his head to gaze at her from the corner of his eye. “I believe I understand,” he told her, though he sounded far from certain. “Though I admit I do not find it a comforting idea.”

She gave him a somewhat shaky smile. “Well, you’re not a pony. I’m not exactly comfortable with the gryphon way, myself.”

His sides rose and fell under her as he puffed a short, soft, humorless laugh and shifted on his perch, clambering easily around to a vantage point closer to the shore. “What can be done if everything we are disturbs the other?”

“We get used to it,” she said. “That’s all.”

He tilted his head again to look back at her, blinking golden eyes, and the river began to move again. The sound of rushing water made his attention snap back to their surroundings, soft pops and dull booms coming from somewhere upstream as water rolled away and exposed a deep trough of mud and gravel.

“Not yet,” she muttered into his ear as he tensed to leap. “Give it a moment.”

He grunted acknowledgement, gathering himself up in a purely feline way as rogue waves sprayed across their path and were sucked back into the thundering bulk of the angry rivers. They didn’t look like much, but Rose had felt the cold grasp of one such wave and had no desire to feel it again. She watched as the water rolled, writhed, and hissed, waiting.

“Now.”

He leapt instantly, exploding out from the tree as she gripped him with desperate strength. Rose’s view bobbed wildly as he fairly bounded through the mud and water, aimed directly at the tantalizing shore. But the safety of that path was illusory, with deep pits beneath the mud waiting to swallow them whole.

“Right!” She told him, and he obeyed, skidding as he changed directions, running parallel to the shore. Ominous liquid noises came from behind them but she refused to look, directing Gérard along the narrow safe route to dry land. The moments seemed to stretch out as the gryphon hung in the air for seconds, minutes, hours.

Then his claws scrabbled on rock and he was leaping up the bank, vaulting to higher ground and sudden grass. She toppled off his back, heart pounding and legs cramping as if she had been the one running, and Gérard stood with his head drooped, once again covered in mud and breathing hard. They just breathed in silence for a time, until Rose finally clambered to her feet.

Gérard cocked his head at her. “I think I understand now. Why you offered to help me hunt without pause.”

“What?” Rose stared at him.

“It is what you said. That a pony is strong when they help others. And you are strong as a pony is strong.”

“I-” Rose wobbled, caught off guard. “That’s an interesting way to put it...”

His eyes caught hers and held them. “I trust what you tell me. That who you are and what you do is bound up in your talent. In finding a path. So I listen to all your words, and I take them as a path you are laying out for me. Should I not?”

The river shifted, and it seemed to Rose that it took the ground with it. It was as if Gérard had turned her around and shown her the back of her own head, or finally let her put all the meanderings in her head onto a map. It was perspective, and perspective alone, but it was enough to make her feel a little dizzy. It was one thing to use your talent, and it was another to have your talent use you. “No,” she said faintly. “You’re right.”

“Are you well, Rose?” Gérard asked with concern, one of his forepaws twitching as if in a suppressed attempt to reach out to her.

“I’m fine.” She blinked a few times, hard, trying to clear her head. Her head was still buzzing, sides still aching from the river crossing, and this threatened to be altogether too much. “I just hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“I did not mean to upset you.”

“I know.” She tried for a reassuring smile, and only ended up with something cracked around the edges. “Celestia knows I’ve upset you enough times.”

He waved it away. “I still would rather not cause you any more pain than I have.”

She swallowed against the sudden ache in her heart, the sight of the slaughtered camp flashing into her head before she closed her eyes against it. “I believe you.” She opened her eyes again to find him still watching her with a mirrored pain in his own expression.

Then she laughed. She couldn’t help it. The grief and fear and misunderstanding between them was too much, and it all toppled into a heap of absurdity. “Look at us! Taking turns scaring each other senseless just by existing!” Rose wiped at her eyes, her sides heaving. “We must be the most ridiculous pair in the world.”

“Yes.” Gérard said, his head tilted the other way. But he wasn’t laughing. She gulped air, the laughter bubbling out and out, sliding into something high and hysterical and impossible to stop. The gryphon reached out to her, stopped, and drew back. Then, slowly, awkwardly, he reached out to put a foreleg over her withers in a clumsy mirror of the comfort that she’d once tried to offer him. Then her laughter turned to sobs and she buried her face against a muddy shoulder far too hard, too scratchy, and too musky to even pretend it was a pony’s, and cried.

Mind Your Trail

Dry fern crunched softly under Rose’s hooves. Away from the river the trees turned to pine, dry needles mixing with the laurel and buckbrush of the understory. It was far easier going than the swamps they’d been stuck in, and the canopy light enough that they could actually see the sun again.

In all it was a far more pleasant prospect than their past weeks of travel, and with the obstacle of the Baltimare behind them it was if a weight had been lifted from her back. Perhaps not a large weight, for they still had many miles to go and there were gryphons at the end, but she was still breathing more easily. And it was nice that Gérard wasn’t completely withdrawn.

But cathartic as that had been, it only served to refresh how alone she was out here, even with Gérard. And how much talking helped. She was beginning to suspect he had insisted on it for her sake as much as his, given how familiar he had to be with death and its aftereffects. Like the hints he’d given her about his past, there was probably more purpose there than not.

He’d told her about all his dead, and more, but she still had a pair to go. And they were a pair, which might have been one reason Gérard’s very last tale had struck her so. She glanced over at the gryphon beside her, his limp neither worse nor better, but got no clues as to his mood. After her cry he’d been more reserved than usual, as if afraid of setting her off again. Or as if he had no experience in comforting people.

Which was probably true.

Then she shook her head, realizing she was being just as bad by not saying anything. “Gérard,” she said, and his attention snapped to her as it had the other times she’d used his name.

“Yes, Rose?”

“Thank you for having me talk about my friends. It helps.”

“Yes,” he said, agreement and acknowledgement at the same time.

“The last two...are kind of like Arvel and Gwyn. They’re paired.”

He tilted his head at her, inviting her to continue.

“Well, Scarlet and Sharps - Sharp Eye - were sort of an item.” A smile flickered across her muzzle and was gone. “It was so ridiculous. Scarlet grew up in the Royal Palace itself, but Sharp Eye was from a frontier town. So she was this gentle, high-class mare, and he was a rough wilderness archer. And they just locked on each other.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Well, you have to understand. A lot of unicorns, especially those from the Palace, like to pretend they’re still in charge, as they were in the distant past. Or somehow better than the other races. And the frontier towns are like this.” She nodded at the pines around them. “Wild and dangerous. Not cultured at all.”

“Much like me, then.” His ears flipped back and then forward again as he looked sideways at her.

She surprised herself with a brief burble of laughter. “Maybe a bit. So Sharps...well, he wasn’t rude, but he wouldn’t exactly fit in at court. You’d do better, I think. Anyway, Scarlet had the power to be a combat mage, but she just couldn’t stand the idea of hurting anything. Sharps, though, he had to keep Corral safe. But they respected each other. And more.” Rose rolled her eyes. “They thought they weren’t obvious.”

“I cannot imagine how it could stay unremarked.” He swiveled his ears in her direction. “Your group was close in much the same way a wing is, and we had no secrets from each other.”

“They were adorable,” Rose agreed. “We all thought so.” But she couldn’t smile over it, because they were gone. The grief was more of an ache than a stab, now, and a distant sense of exhaustion slowing her steps. Gérard gave her fifteen or twenty seconds, circling around a bush, before breaking into her thoughts.

“You mentioned their different backgrounds, but they were unicorn and earth pony. Is that not an issue? Do races mingle?”

“Oh, it’s more common to stick with your own, but couples that cross tribes aren’t that unusual. I-” She stopped abruptly.

“What is it, Rose?”

“I was just going to say - Celestia, it’s been ages - that I used to have an Earth Pony coltfriend myself. Iron Bar. One of the sweetest stallions I’ve ever met, I swear.”

“A blacksmith, by the name?”

She nodded, her shadow bobbing ahead as a gap in the canopy let the setting sun through onto her back. “Yes. From a long line of them, actually. Things like that tend to run in families, you know. It got serious for a while, too. He really was a wonderful pony.”

“What happened?” Gérard asked quietly, clearly expecting something terrible.

“Oh, it just didn’t work out, in the end.” She gave him half a smile. “I don’t know how it works with gryphons but it does happen that way sometimes for ponies. It was nothing bad, it’s just...well, I have to be somewhere I can be a pathfinder. And with Iron Bar...I couldn’t. Not really.”

“He was shaped wrong.”

“What?” Rose looked over at him, and his ears flicked briefly.

“It is an old gryphon thought. People are shaped differently. Some are rocks, for the world to dash itself on. Some are mirrors, to reflect the world, or talons, to rend what is before them. And a rock needs water, to carry it from place to place and polish it smooth. A mirror needs a candle, to illuminate it. A talon needs a strong and guiding arm. Without the proper companion, you are less than you should be.”

“That’s...I like that actually.” That little bit of philosophy seemed to say more about gryphons than most of what Gérard had told her. “So what shape am I?”

“Tch.” He clicked his beak, thinking about it. The seconds stretched on to a minute or more, and she looked at him with some concern. She hadn’t meant it that seriously.

Finally he answered. “You are shaped like a gryphon.”

She stumbled on nothing at all and stopped to stare at him. A half-dozen thoughts sprang to the fore, but only one made it out. “Don’t do that!”

“What, startle you?” He cocked his head at her, his ears focused on her and his eyes glittering with amusement. “I thought we agreed it was only fair.”

She snorted. “Okay, I’ll grant you that. But you really need to explain that one to me.”

“You strive. You know who and what you are, you are assured in yourself, and you know you must labor to be what you are against what the world is. And that is what a gryphon should be.”

“Hmm.” He was far too earnest for her to take it lightly. She didn’t think he was quite right, apart from the obvious fact that she wasn’t a gryphon, but she had to admit it wasn’t without substance either. “Then what shape are you?”

“Tch…” He shook his head. “I do not know anymore. I have lost it somewhere along the way.”

Rose frowned at him. That didn’t seem quite right, given how self-possessed the gryphon seemed. But then, she’d already noticed there were two Gérards - the assured, confident warrior, and someone teetering on the edge of an abyss. His answer belonged to the second Gérard, but she wasn’t sure why. “Well, perhaps we can find it again, then.”

“Yes.” It was, again, agreement and acknowledgement both. They continued east.

The spots of sunlight on the ground shrunk and vanished as the sky purpled, the sun vanishing somewhere behind them. Rose stopped them in an almost-clearing, where a few chunks of sandstone broke the carpet of laurel and needles, setting up the tent as Gérard dug a firepit. She expected to see him go off hunting, since he’d snapped down the last of his meat, but instead he simply watched as she built a small and careful fire.

“So,” he said at last. “Nerys.”

Rose put aside the buckbrush sprigs she’d collected. If Gérard felt like saying anything at all about such a difficult topic, he deserved her absolute attention.

“I began courting her the moment I came of age,” he said. “And I was not the only one. She had many suitors simply for being the daughter of Aida, and many more on her own merits. She was much like her mother - brilliant, beautiful, and sharp as Aquila’s own talons. Not so much a fighter, you understand, as a commander. A leader.”

She nodded, though he probably wasn’t seeing her. He’d said only a little about Aida, but it was enough to know that she had to be an extraordinary gryphon. It wasn’t much surprise that her daughter was, too.

“After, oh, years, she finally chose me.” He snorted softly. “At the time, of course, it seemed inevitable. At this distance, I am not sure why I was the one, how I could possibly stand out in that crowd. But we were both so young and foolish, back then.”

She had some idea why he might have been chosen, if it had been his own project to learn Equestrian. Or given his keen, if occasionally upsetting, intellect. “How long were you married?”

“Sixteen months.” He didn’t seem to notice Rose’s wince. “I will not claim every day was bliss. I am not so deluded. But, we were happy.” Now he did turn to look at her. “You must understand, Rose. The gryphon clans and houses test each other all the time. It is how we gauge strength. So a raid is merely part of life. You take what food you can carry, and maybe a trophy if one is foolishly unguarded, and laugh at whoever you snuck past as you fly away. Even if you get in a fight, it is not in earnest.”

“But that didn’t happen with Nerys.” She could see the shape of the story now, and wasn’t particularly looking forward to the conclusion.

“No. One of my fishers warned me there were raiders approaching. But I was not in time. By the time I arrived Nerys was dead and the house torn apart.” He waved vaguely with one forepaw. “Even now I do not know why. It was buried under too much hate and violence. I went mad for a time. Then, knowing from the warriors who had seen them that it was House Assan, I did my utmost to destroy them.” Gérard sighed, and rubbed at his beak.

“There were so many interlocking agreements and obligations and alliances that in three months the whole Eyrie had dissolved into war. I do not think it would have lasted for long, in the end, but where I was breaking things apart, Aida was putting them back together. In half a year she had united most of the clans. But for House Assan and its allies.”

Her eyes were fixed on him. He sounded tired rather than grieved, not stumbling over his words or shouting them in anger. And he had continued past the moment itself, telling about her death and what it meant rather than about her life.

“Kolaire Assan swore he would join his house to her alliance if I were to abandon my campaign, admit my wrongs, and surrender. It was an impossible bluff of course; I was only doing what was honorable and Nerys was Aida’s own daughter. She would have ignored it. But he made the mistake of saying it when I was present.

“It was the proper gryphon thing to spit in his face and go on to crush him. To take my vengeance and find justice for Nerys. But...Aquila granted me one moment of crystal clarity, even callow as I was then. I could destroy him, and return to an empty house in an Eyrie no different than before, or destroy myself and perhaps create something she would have wanted.”

Rose found she wasn’t even breathing.

“I surrendered.” He sighed and clambered to his feet. “I shall go hunting now, Rose. I do not believe there is anything dangerous close by, but keep yourself safe.”

Wordlessly, she watched him vanish into the twilight. She was more than a bit muddled after that, not entirely sure how to take his story. It gave her a clear picture of Gérard speaking up after Kolaire had issued his challenge, striding up to him. But no, he wouldn’t have gloated. There had been no triumph in his words, just weariness.

In the end, his story hadn’t been about Nerys herself, but what she had meant to him. And something more that she didn’t quite understand yet. The story had an air of confession about it, as if exposing some sin.

“Celestia,” she breathed, as she realized perhaps he was. From what he’d said, there were few gryphons who would have seen that surrender as anything but cowardice. Or even betrayal; he must have lost no few friends to that decision. When Gérard said he had destroyed himself, that was exactly the word he had meant. It didn’t explain the intervening eight years, or what he was doing here, but it was almost certainly why there were two different Gérards. And why his shape had become lost to him.

She chewed on the buckbrush and watched the fire. By now, she should have found her way around the walls that she kept running into with Gérard, but it was more that he had a whole race and culture and history that she could only glimpse through a tiny lens. It was only now, with that story, that she’d really grasped how little she’d seen and how much there was.

Time stretched on, and the sky faded toward black. Stars poked through the velvet here and there, but, as had been the case for the past three years, there was no moon. Which she was privately grateful for, after the long winter under that silver eye. The wind turned cool and eventually she retreated to the tent, keeping an eye on the embers of the fire through the open flap.

She’d really never considered before how he found his way back from hunting, given that he was, as professed, no pathfinder. It had to be solely by scent and sight and memory, doubling back on his own trail and looking for the beacon of a fire. Past the scent of blood, no less, if he didn’t stumble across a stream. It seemed a lonely enough hope, and she crept back out more than once, only half awake, to poke up the fire before the embers died completely.

Eventually he did reappear, looming suddenly out of the night, and she was glad to see him despite the way her stomach cringed at the smell of death he carried with him. He cocked his head at her, looking somehow even more tired than he had when he’d left. “Could you not sleep?” He inquired, his calm and formal tones at odds with his disheveled appearance.

“I wanted to keep the fire alive,” she explained. “In case you needed it to find your way back.”

He blinked at her slowly, lids going down and then up. “Thank you, Rose,” he said. “But you need not worry. I know your scent, and the sound of your breathing and of the tent in the wind. I can find you so long as I am within a mile or so. Further, if I’m downwind.”

Her face froze into a sort of non-expression for an instant. Even carrying the scent of blood, she’d somehow forgotten that Gérard was a predator and a hunter, and the idea that he could tell her breathing from the rest of the forest sounds, or could track her by scent from a mile away froze her spine. And she had committed to walking into an encampment full of them. “Oh,” she managed as she waited for her heart to start beating again.

His head tilted slightly as he regarded her. “I did not mean to frighten you, Rose.”

She took a deep breath. “Don’t apologize for what you are,” she scolded him. “It’s not your fault, or mine, that you’re a predator and I’m not.”

“As you say,” he conceded, and Rose yawned, exhaustion crashing down on her as the rush of fear ebbed and faded.

“And you need to go out earlier. I refuse to believe you need less sleep than I do.”

His head tilted back in the other direction and his eyes glittered, his tail twitching. She could have sworn he was stifling a laugh. “Of course. Is there anything else, Rose?” There was an odd edge of almost-challenge in his voice, but she was too tired to try and dissect it.

“Actually, yes. Something about your story confused me. How old are you, exactly?” She had thought he was starting on his fourth decade, at least from the way he spoke and moved, but that didn’t quite match up with the timeline he’d given her.

He raised his eyebrows at her but answered without hesitation. “I am in my twenty-ninth year.”

“What?” She gaped at him. “That’s ridiculous. You’re younger than I am! I’ll be thirty-two next month.”

“And you don’t look a day over thirty,” Gérard murmured with a flick of his ears, then shook his head. “Forgive me, Rose, but I have always thought it is a matter of how hard one has lived their years, rather than how many.”

“Mm.” She found it hard to argue with that. The three and a half years since the sun had simply not risen during the Longest Night had been longer and harder than the rest of her life combined. Then she yawned again. “I think I’m going to climb into my bedroll before you manage to surprise me with something else.”

Tend Your Fire

“I think I should teach you as much of my language as you can manage, Rose. It will not be safe, otherwise.”

She glanced at him over the top of her map, where the line showing their path of travel continued to extend, achingly slowly, toward the coast. But they were past the halfway point, and she’d begun actually considering what might happen if they reached their destination. “I’ve been thinking about that too. It wasn’t until last night that I’d actually realized I’d have to deal with other gryphons.”

“More than deal with,” Gérard sighed. “You may be the only one there I can properly trust.”

“That seems a bit strong,” she protested. Besides, she had no illusions that she could possibly hold off any gryphon that wished her harm. “What could I do to help in the middle of so many gryphons?”

“Support me,” he said. “You will be, perhaps, a guest, but certainly an extension of myself, for honor and respect. Combat is not your calling, and I will ensure you need not demonstrate that. But you will need to demonstrate courage, integrity, and competence. They will test you. That is the nature of gryphons.”

“And what will you be doing?” She stared at him, boggled by the thought of trying to defend Gérard against his fellows, even if it wasn’t by fighting. But on the other hoof, it did make some sense given what she knew about gryphons. His word alone could vouch for her, but it wouldn’t tell them who and what she was.

“Taking command.” He sighed. “What that will require depends upon what Kree has said and done...and what he says and does.”

“So you fight Kree and I...what? Argue with soldiers?”

“Not simply argue. You will be a pony surrounded by gryphons. They will know this as much as you. Preserve your dignity with them as much as you have with me and you need not worry.”

“If that’s all, I think I can manage it.” She laughed, the small thrill of panic fading. It was not as terrifying a command as she’d first thought.

“I believe you can.” His beak clicked softly, his eyes glittering for a moment. “And if nothing else, you can support me by being better company than most.”

She snorted. “Even though I’m not a gryphon?”

“You are gryphon-shaped,” he pointed out.

“That’s not the same.” She snorted. “I’m still a pony. Even if I admit, with some reservations, about being shaped differently, I’m not a gryphon at all.”

“No,” he agreed, but his voice held satisfaction rather than resignation. She stowed her maps and raised her eyebrows at him speculatively, but he only turned to look east, where the rising sun stabbed through the canopy here and there. “How many days do we have, Rose?”

“If we’re just walking like we did yesterday, another twelve to fifteen days. We can’t quite walk a straight line, but it should be less difficult than the swamp we’ve been in.”

“Time enough, perhaps.” He glanced upward for a moment before joining her at the edge of their little campsite. “It has been nearly a decade since I tried teaching Alce.”

“How long did it take then?”

“Months. Though neither of us spoke a common language, and...they were not so eager to learn.”

Rose pressed her lips together for a moment, walking in silence, before choosing her words carefully. “I forget, sometimes, that you’ve imprisoned and killed ponies. I know it’s not because you’re evil or even mean, but it’s still hard to accept.”

He said something in his liquid language and she glanced over at him, asking the question with her eyes.

“It means, ‘I own my actions.’” His beak clicked softly. “Tch. I have done many bad things, and many wrong things. I still do not know what was a mistake, and what was simply regrettable.”

She nodded. It sounded like Gérard had done a lot of things he had regretted but, properly speaking, weren’t mistakes. “Is that a common saying?”

“Not so much.” He sighed quietly, his paws and talons somehow silent on the dry understory. “I do not know how it is with ponies, but there is not such an overabundance of virtue among gryphons that none shy from consequences.”

“Well, ponies aren’t perfect. Even Princess Celestia says that. But we try to be our best.”

“I believe that,” he said, looking off into the distance. Then he turned his gaze to her. “I suppose we should start. I have spent so much time speaking Equestrian of late. I hope my tongue has not forgotten any Alce.”

Rose focused her eyes on their course and her ears on the fluid stream of syllables coming from Gérard’s beak. Two weeks, at best, seemed an awful short time to get anywhere near to fluent in a completely different language, but it was all the time she had.

The language itself would have surprised her if she hadn’t already known Gérard. She would have expected something harsh, with screeches and roars, but Alce was melodic and elegant-sounding. Or at least his version of it was. It seemed clear that Gérard had been, if not actually a noble, at least in the same circles, and she had to admit Equestrian sounded better from the mouth of the Princess than it did in Rose’s own rustic accent.

It was fortunate the terrain was much easier. Since she merely had to pick their way around the worst of the understory, and the occasional stream was small enough to hop over or wade, she could focus most of her attention on Gérard. And on trying to wrap her mind and tongue around Alce words. She didn’t know what he had in mind for when they actually reached the gryphon outpost, but she’d certainly be near-helpless if she couldn’t understand the simplest words.

Though she was willing to go on all day, Gérard wasn’t quite ready for that. His voice started to become a little hoarse and strained around midafternoon, and he paused to take a long drink from his battered and dented canteen.

“You should take a break,” she told him in a mangled mix of Alce and Equestrian. “If your voice gives out you can’t teach me anything.”

“True.” He sighed and stowed the canteen again, reverting to Equestrian himself. “Time just seems to press, now.”

She didn’t disagree. Somewhere along the line she’d lost track of exactly how long they’d been traveling, but it had to be over two weeks. It didn’t seem that long, on one hoof. The sight of her ruined camp was still there if she closed her eyes, and the ache of her missing friends still felt like a severed limb. But, on the other hoof, the days since had been lived hard, as Gérard would put it, and the weight of them seemed to displace everything else.

And every day between them and the outpost was a day that Kree might be killing ponies. Or gryphons, for the settlements at the border still had ponies like Sharp Eye to protect them from the native dangers that roamed Equestria. Though she had the feeling that, if Kree was as dangerous as Gérard, that wouldn’t be enough.

“Celestia knows we’re traveling as fast as we can. Worrying about it won’t make us go faster.” It was the sort of thing Mercy used to say all the time, and it felt more than a little odd passing her lips.

Gérard noticed. “Those aren’t your words,” he said, more a question than a challenge.

“No. Mercy would say that when we were behind schedule. It made me feel better when she said it, but I don’t seem to have the knack.” Rose’s mouth twisted into a brief grimace. “I’m worried too. Not for the same reasons you are, I imagine, but it’s there.”

“Worry is never in short supply.” His beak clicked softly. “Whether the words are yours or not, comforting or not, you are correct. I simply do not wish to be too late, yet again.”

She winced slightly, but Gérard’s voice hadn’t held any particularly bitter twist. It seemed he’d long made peace with events, though whether that was a gryphon trait or just Gérard himself she couldn’t tell. “I understand,” she said, and he inclined his head in a sort of wry acknowledgement of what she was thinking.

The understory grew denser as they made their way east, despite the occasional sandstone outcrop and the fact that, by her map, the pines eventually thinned into a rocky scrub. But that was ahead of them, and for the moment the bushes and tangled remnants of trees and thorns forced them back to single file.

Gérard hadn’t asked about their course since they’d crossed the river, but she was heading as much north as west now, since the northern arm of Horseshoe Bay was a significant distance from the Baltimare’s mouth. And the spur that was their ultimate goal was actually somewhat south of that arm, the water of the bay forcing a frustrating detour. But there was nothing like the river or the marshes in their way now, and it would get even easier once they broke out of the forest. Still, properly navigating through the understory was the difference between traveling ten miles in a day instead of six.

This time she stopped them before the sky began to purple, casting about for the nearest brook with her spell and pitching the tent not far away. If she expected Gérard to obey her admonition to hunt earlier, she had to give him the time to do so. He didn’t object to her decision, helping her clear out a spot for a fire, but he did lift his eyebrows at her before he left to go hunt. “If we are stopping earlier, we will have to make better time during the day. I am healed enough that I should be able to keep up.”

Rose nodded, but she hadn’t really thought about how he’d been letting her set the pace. And she thought she’d been doing a good enough job. Clearly, though, Gérard thought she’d been taking it easy for his sake and tomorrow she’d really start pushing. Which of course she would have to do. Nothing like the brutal forced march of the first day, of course, but hopefully something closer to what a career soldier would expect.

It wasn’t that she was out of shape. In fact she could probably hold up better to that sort of exercise than most unicorns. But her team had concentrated on being thorough rather than fast, and walking all day, every day, through rough terrain, was more than she was used to. The past two weeks had built up her stamina, admittedly, but she was still feeling the strain. Which was why she was yawning at the fire not long after she’d filled her belly with the buckbrush and some tea from the leaves of a lone sassafras standing along the stream.

But she refused to abandon her vigil at the fire until Gérard came back. At the very least she could make him wash himself off in the stream so the tent didn’t smell of blood. It was easy enough to lose track of time, though, with nothing but the soft crackle of fire and the hesitant sounds of night insects. When she found her head drooping she stood up to make herself more tea and only then noticed Gérard on the other side of the fire, having suddenly appeared out of the darkness.

“Thank you for waiting up for me, Rose.” The firelight threw his talons and beak into harsh relief, and made his golden eyes shine out at her. “Though you need not worry for my sake.”

“I know, but it seems rude to just go to sleep.” She smiled and waved her hoof at him. “Besides, this way I can remind you to wash your beak.”

He ran his tongue along his beak thoughtfully, then limped over to the creek and splashed his face with the water. “All this time together, and yet...” he muttered, scrubbing his beak. “Rose, how do ponies treat guests?”

She blinked at him, thrown by the question but willing to answer. “You treat them well. Make sure you have food they like, give them the head of the table. Make sure everything is clean and nice...you want to make a good impression.”

“The community, still?”

“Helping others, at least,” she agreed, and considered it. “There’s certainly a community aspect...you don’t want to be known as a poor host. It reflects badly on the rest of the ponies around you.”

Gérard grunted, sitting down beside her and scrubbing at the fur and feathers on his head to dry them off in the heat of the fire. “Does it bother you that you cannot treat me as a guest?”

She laughed. “We’re a bit past that now, don’t you think?”

“Even so.”

“It’s…” Rose shook her head slowly. “I can’t even imagine it. It’s ridiculous. Besides, shouldn’t I be your guest at this point?”

“The thought had occurred to me.” He rumbled, his tail twitching. “For gryphons, a guest is not simply welcomed. They are challenged. To do otherwise is to say they are beneath notice, but one does not duel with a guest. The usual thing is a hunt. To take each other’s measure without needing to clash.”

“That makes sense,” she allowed, considering it. Even foal gryphons, whatever they were called, would be able to participate in a hunt, whether or not they did more than simply follow their elders.

“I would like you to come with me on a hunt.”

“What?” She recoiled, mentally if not physically. “I’m not...I could never…”

“Combat is not your calling,” he said. “I know that. I would not expect you to join in a kill. And I know we have already taken each other’s measure, but without a hunt it still seems incomplete.”

“I...I’ll think about it.” He knew what he was asking. Even from the beginning he’d kept the hunting and killing and as much carnivorism away from her as he could, and she was grateful for it. But she would be in the middle of gryphons soon enough and have to endure it. And if Gérard thought it was important, it certainly was. That didn’t stop it from being a blood-chilling idea.

“That is all I ask.” If he was disappointed, it didn’t show.

When they broke camp in the morning he launched back into Alce, his voice coming from behind her most of the time as her hooves crunched against the heavier undergrowth. It was still dense enough to force her to take the lead, and this time she pressed harder than her usual pace. As ever, his footfalls were silent, with only his words making any noise at all.

Clouds began to build in the sky behind them as the sun peaked and started to sink again, dark thunderheads massing in the west. The occasional breeze turned into something more sustained as the weather turned toward storm. She didn’t have feathers, but Gérard did, and he ruffled them as the trees swayed and sighed. “I fear we will have to take shelter early today.”

“I think so too.” Sky Shadow probably could have steered the front around them, and in fact often had kept them out of the worst of the wild weather that appeared outside pegasus control. But he was no longer with her, so they’d have to yield to the whims of nature.

She stopped at the first place resembling a clearing, pitching the tent on slightly slanted ground and helping Gérard hammer in the stakes as the wind tugged at the fabric. He eyed the tops of clouds, barely visible through the canopy, and clicked his beak. “Tch. I should go now before the weather is upon us. Will you come with me, Rose?”

“Not...not this time.” She wasn’t ready for it. And maybe she never would be, but she didn’t want to reject it entirely. He simply nodded before heading off into wilderness. Downwind.

She busied herself foraging from the bushes and trees nearby, turning up a few wildflowers to supplement the ever-present buckbrush and ferns. She was beginning to miss actual fruits and vegetables, and resolved to seek out some wildberries the next time they moved. Surely even Gérard would appreciate those. But with the wind she made no fire, as it surely would have been scattered and extinguished the moment she struck a spark.

From somewhere far distant there came a crackle of thunder, once and then again, and she winced, heading back to the tent. It sounded like they were in for some seriously unpleasant weather, but at least they were no longer near the river. If it was that angry before, she shuddered to think what it might become when swollen by floods.

The wind plucked at the tent, ruffling the front flap as she nibbled a flower and waited for Gérard to return. It whistled and hummed against cords, carrying with it the scent of lightning and the threat of rain. But then the wind veered around, and it carried with it something else.

Smoke.

She wrinkled her muzzle, frowning out the tent flap before she remembered she’d set no fire. Her heart leapt into her throat and she stumbled outside as the wind swept a pall of smoke through the trees, along with an ominous snapping and crackling. Rose stared, horrified, as the tree canopy was blotted out by black and an orange glow appeared behind it. The forest was on fire.

Panic held her pinned for an instant before the wind swept a fresh plume of smoke into her face, and she choked and coughed, ducking her head under the sudden blast of heat. Her legs trembled with the instinct to run, but she forced herself to grab her bedroll, tossing it onto her back before hauling at the stakes Gérard had driven into the ground.

Another gust of wind, and the roar of the fire reached around south of her, the tongues of flame visible now as she wrestled with the last stake, only to nearly lose the tent anyway as the wind tried to tug it from her grasp. It hauled her a few inches before she collapsed it and snapped it in place on her saddlebags, ducking her head under the roof of smoke and gasping desperately, then shrieking as the fire itself raced up behind her and licked at her rear hoofs. She took off running, and the front followed her like a hungry animal.

“Gérard!” She shouted, hoping that his ears were as sharp as he claimed and that he could pick her out in the conflagration and confusion. Heat battered at her flanks as she galloped headlong, barely faster than the fire itself, driven by the wind as it was. Her hooves pounded in time with her heart, both driven by the primal, atavistic terror she finally let loose as she ran.

She called out for him again before choking on the smoke and coughing, tears streaming from her eyes as she made her way by panicked feel and pathfinding instinct, trying to find somewhere to escape the fire. Somewhere behind her lightning struck, turning the air a dirty silver for a brief instant before thunder boomed, but there was no rain to bring relief.

A sudden blaze ahead of her made her slide to a halt, suddenly blocked by another line of fire. Some windborne spark had jumped ahead of her, igniting another front to the fire and blocking her path. Hemming her in. She pranced in place, her throat feeling parched and cracked from the hot, harsh air, and looked for a way out.

Among the burning trees and bushes ahead there were a few spots that had already burnt out, leaving only seared embers. It wasn’t much, but it was better than the alarmingly flammable carpet of needles she stood on. She braced herself, ducked her head low to take a deep breath, and vaulted over the flames, hissing as the tongues seared her legs.

Her hooves skidded and slid on a layer of ash and cinder as she landed, surrounded by burning trees and a furnace heat. “Gérard!” Rose shouted once more, though she had no idea what he could even do. Or if he could hear her. Or if he was even alive. He was no more fireproof than she was.

She lowered her head, trying to find fresh air to breathe as she kicked away burning bits of bark or twig, for the little good it would do her. The fire was a wall ahead of her and behind, trees burned to either side, and faintly, blackly, she realized there was nothing she could do. Then with a terrible, ear-shattering detonation the tree beside her exploded, bits of flaming wood arcing up into the black and choking sky.

And a burning limb smashed down from above, flattening her to the ground.

Guard Your Guide

Rose screamed as heat seared her, the burning wood pinning her down and pressing close against her flank and shoulder and neck like some terrible demon lover. She flinched away from cracked, blackened wood inches from her face as she scrabbled against the weight of the limb and gasped air that reeked of burnt fur and scorched flesh. It flexed briefly, the branches, flensed of needles, dragging at the ground, but it refused to budge, driving red-hot points of pain into her skin. All she could do was heave uselessly against the burning wood.

Then there was a sharp crack, and talons grabbed her legs and hauled her out from under what was now two pieces of wood. She coughed, head swimming, trying to pull away from the hot iron pressing against her skin. “I was not too late,” someone said, with an odd hitch in their voice, and then hauled her onto a broad back. “Hold on, Rose.” The back began to move, and she clung to it dazedly as fire and wind whipped by.

The long, scorching ache along her right side grew, sending runners up to wrap around her throat, as if she were breathing fire itself. She hunched down against the jolting, flexing back she was on until the pain seemed to float off by itself, still there but separate from her, the sun come too close. In a vague, befuddled way she realized she was still moving, and that it would be better to veer further right.

She did. Cool, sweet air replaced the beating heat and smoky haze, but her mind remained as fuzzy as ever, barely able to do more than notice the passing terrain. But she did notice, eventually, that they were headed uphill, and she remembered from the Burn Days of her foalhood that fire moved faster uphill.

As if summoned by the thought, the roar and crackle of flames abruptly boomed louder, followed by a blast of furnace heat, and the back beneath her shivered and tensed. Rose nearly slid off as it surged forward, bounding up the slope and then seeming to float down the other side. Down was good. Valleys might remain untouched even in a good, pony-led burn.

“Then we shall stop here.” The movement ceased, and a moment later she was lowered down onto blessedly cool grass. On the wrong side, for the flank that most needed relief was facing the air, but she couldn’t find the strength to turn over. The sound of running water managed to cut through the background rumble of burning pines, and she blinked slowly as her vision began to clear. She took a breath, smelled burnt flesh, and coughed convulsively. Gérard’s head appeared above her, ears flat, eyes pinched in concern.

“I must smell like dinner,” she managed to croak, and his expression eased slightly.

“Certainly not. Pony meat has too delicate a flavor to cook,” he corrected her gently, his eyes smiling. “You have it raw, with a bit of salt.”

“Of course,” she said faintly, and he smoothed back a stray lock of her mane with his talon.

“I have to clean these burns, Rose,” he said. “It is going to hurt.”

It did.

But then he began spreading the unicorn-made burn cream over her and fraction by fraction the cool, soothing numbness relaxed her. At least until she thought about how much he’d had to use. Then she began shivering, body twitching in jerky, delayed shock.

“Be still, Rose,” he said, putting a forepaw on her brow, and she was. An apocalyptic glow silhouetted the edges of the little valley, blazing orange and black smoke pouring upward to mix with dark clouds that refused to rain. Every once in a while there was a distant crack, whether of thunder or of other trees meeting their end she couldn’t tell.

She felt a vague tugging as Gérard removed her saddlebags, tent, and bedroll, easing the one with the maps out from under her. She started to tilt her head to look at him, but thought better of it when the first slight movement pulled at her skin in odd and disconcerting ways. “What’re you doing?”

“Setting up camp. This seems to be as good a refuge as you suggested, and if the storm breaks it will do you no favors to be rained on. Tch. Of all things, how you thought to salvage the tent in that inferno...”

“Had to.” Her voice was still raw and coarse, and she had to swallow before going on, wondering when she’d said anything about the valley - more of a defile, really - being a refuge. “Ground’s too cold. And ’s enchanted. Keeps pests away.”

“I had wondered at the lack of insects,” Gérard mused, accompanied by the sounds of cloth. “But it did not seem important at the time.”

“Canteen?” She croaked, and he appeared above her again, holding his own.

“I used up all the water in yours,” he said. Her horn lit as she grasped it, thanking Celestia she didn’t need to use her hooves under the circumstances. The long, thin spout was meant for a beak but worked just as well for her muzzle, and she sucked greedily at the contents, cool and sweet and wet.

When he finished setting up the tent, Gérard returned to claim his canteen and help her inside and onto her bedroll. She didn’t feel as weak as she had before but, even numbed, the swath of burn along her side and neck protested whenever she moved, and in ways that turned her stomach more than simple pain would. “How bad is it?” She asked quietly, before he could go back outside.

“You will live, Rose,” he said, turning to face her and holding her eyes with his. “It will leave you with quite a scar, and a story to tell your grandchildren. And it will make walking very uncomfortable for a time. But there is no need to fear.”

“Thank you,” she said, and closed her eyes.

She slept fitfully for a time, waking to the jostle of the tent sliding across the ground and the dull hammering of rain on cloth. She lit her horn and the movement stopped, Gérard stepping inside a few minutes later with water dripping from his beak. Aside from some smudges of soot in the fur and feathers around his ears he seemed to have escaped the fire relatively untouched. “How is it you aren’t burned?” She asked, dutifully using Alce for all but the last word.

“I am very, very fast. And you were somewhere I could get to without crossing the front myself. I would say it was luck, but with your talent I cannot be certain.”

“Oh,” she said, as the rumble of the rain increased to a roar. Only then did she realize that Gérard had been moving them up the slope. Away from valley bottom, and any possible flood. Her wits still felt like molasses, either from the burn or something in the cream. “Good.”

He settled in next to her and she let her horn flicker out, listening to the weather. “I begin to believe this land does not like us,” he said in the darkness.

She snorted a laugh, unable to muster more than that. “Don’t they have forest fires in Eyrie?”

“On occasion. But I have never been in one.”

“Oh, so this is your first time?” She grinned in the direction of his voice, finding some strange amusement in his inexperience.

“And, Aquila willing, my last,” he said fervently.

“Oh, it’s not so bad if it’s a proper controlled burn.” She yawned. “I used to map out the fire fronts back in Tacksburg. Had burns every two years or so.”

“I had not thought about what you would have done with your talent prior to the war,” Gérard admitted. “You are familiar with the frontier towns as well. You must have traveled most of your lands.”

“I guess I’ve been most places,” Rose mumbled. “Kinda like you.”

“I suspect you have had more time to appreciate the scenery.” His voice turned wry. “There is little time to admire even the Eyrie’s breathtaking views when you travel only at night, and stay only as long as you must.”

“Hm.” Her ears twitched against the bedroll as she focused on his words. “What were you doing fighting anyway? I thought it was called Aida’s Peace.”

“Tch.” Gérard was silent for a time. “It is true that there were no wars between clans, but the peace was a fragile thing. There were those who had to be protected, if it was to stand. Both their honor and their person.”

“And you did the protecting.”

“Aida needed someone who was absolutely loyal, but also willing to take the responsibility - and dishonor - from those who needed their standing preserved. Someone good enough at fighting to win without killing.” He sighed softly. “Perhaps if all gryphons held fast to true honor and virtue it would not have been necessary, but most of them were merely doing what they thought best.”

“Like Kree.” Even in her current state she couldn’t miss the parallels.

“Yes.”

Rose tried to grapple with the scope of what Gérard was talking about, and how it could extend over so many years. She knew she didn’t quite make it, but she did have an idea, especially after Scarlet’s tales of unicorn politics. Scarlet had escaped, but Gérard hadn’t.

“I’ve figured it out.” She yawned again, suddenly certain despite the exhaustion creeping into her. “You’re shaped like a pony.”

“Am I, then?” His voice was careful, fragile, as if he were fifty years older. Or a hundred.

“Mm. Everything you’ve done was for the good of all gryphons. For the community. Not for yourself.”

Her only reply was a soft click of a beak.

“And,” she added. “I don’t think you do it out of loyalty or duty. You do it out of love.”

This time there was no reply at all, and she very nearly had drifted back to sleep when his voice came. “I will think on it, Rose. I have learned to follow where you lead.”

The morning light showed the full extent of the damage. The burn cream covered a swath extending from her side up along her shoulder and onto her neck, the ointment turning into a kind of artificial scab to cover the burned flesh. It looked ugly and unpleasant, but she was just as glad that she couldn’t see what she looked like underneath it. The rest of her fur was alternately smudged, patchy, and singed, and half of the hair on her tail was gone.

The saddlebag that had protected at least part of her flank was a charred mess. She dug through it, heart sinking, and found that the sad remnants of Goldy’s journal and Sky’s sketchbook were completely ruined, ash flaking away even under the most delicate magical touch. The other bag was intact, and so were the precious maps, along with the even more precious remaining mementos.

She ached, all over but mostly under the scab, but it wasn’t the stabbing, searing pain of the night before. At least, until she tried to move and strands of white agony shot through her shoulder. The spells were still there, faintly woven into the protective shell the cream had formed, but the complete anaesthetic was gone.

So was Gérard. It didn’t much surprise her that the gryphon wasn’t there, since it seemed to be well into mid-morning, and he probably never had managed to get a meal before the fire came through. She gritted her teeth and, favoring her bad shoulder, hauled herself outside to take care of certain necessities.

The air outside smelled like wet charcoal more than anything. Though the little valley the tent stood in was still green and lush, the pines standing around them had scorched and blackened trunks and a few remaining sprigs of needles. Besides the occasional sigh of wind through bare branches and the tiny trickle of the brook, there were no sounds at all. Even the insects were silent in the aftermath of the fire.

After she had been outside for some time, sitting in the slice of sunlight that angled onto the ground next to the tent, Gérard appeared noiselessly over the lip of the defile. She started to raise a hoof to wave, but stopped as her body protested, settling for a smile instead as he limped down to wash his beak in the brook. Then he splashed across it and over to her, cocking his head.

“The magic in that cream made my claws itch, but I do not imagine it was enough to heal overnight.”

“No.” She followed him with her eyes. Turning her head hurt too much. “I can barely move, actually. But it’s better than it was before.”

“Good,” he said, and meant it. “Your food was burnt. I do not know what plants you can eat, but I did find berries while I was out.” He unlimbered his own saddlebags and opened one to reveal a sizeable stash of blueberries and blackberries.

“Thank you!” Her eyes widened at the largesse, and she wondered where he’d managed to find anything intact out there. She brought the berries to her mouth, savoring the sweet juice as Gérard poked his beak into the tent.

“When you are finished, Rose, I think we should break camp. I know you cannot walk yet, but I can carry you a fair distance. Some progress would be better than none.”

She winced at the thought, but he was right. “Just let me update my maps. And...take care of Goldy and Sky’s things.”

“Of course, Rose.” He withdrew the saddlebags for her, putting them down on the grass beside her and then settling down himself, half-spreading his wings in the sunlight. She took another hasty mouthful of berries and then withdrew the maps. Their line of travel in the escape from the fire went more north than west, and she was glad she’d been conscious when Gérard had carried her. She hated losing track of where she was.

The symbols shifted as she added in the little valley, as well as the icon for forest fires, as well as updating as much of the landscape as she could remember. It was a comforting ritual. Then she regarded the charred and ruined saddlebag and the papers inside, searching for any words she could give her dead friends.

“I’ll remember you,” she promised them, and piled a few loose rocks into a small cairn around the remnants and murmured a short prayer to Celestia. Only then did she slowly and carefully turn her head to take down the tent.

Being carried was actually not so painful as she had feared. Gérard had a smooth, almost silky gait when he wasn’t running, even with his limp, and though it didn’t actually help the dull ache of her burn, neither did it stir it into blinding agony. She could imagine, on occasion, that she was almost ready to walk. Then she would move her leg or her neck and the illusion would be dispelled.

“You said that the magic in that cream made your claws itch?” She decided to focus on something else. “Most non-unicorn ponies can’t tell when something’s enchanted.”

“Gryphons can. Though magic is rare enough for us.”

“It is? Do you have something like unicorns?”

“No.” Gérard was silent for a moment. “Aida wears a suit of bronze armor. It is called ‘We Endure.’ It was made by some poor fishergryph, pressed into service in a time of great need, when the clan needed armor more than fish. It was ugly and, in truth, ill-made, but it was worn by the son of the clan head. By the time the conflict was over, that son was the clan head. It has been worn, since then, by every leader of clan Skytalon. It is still ugly, and still ill-made. But I have seen it turn dragonfire.”

“That’s incredible.” Rose was not at all a powerful unicorn, not like Scarlet, and had never studied truly advanced spellcraft. But she knew that an enchantment that could block dragonfire took more than just history and hope. At least for ponies.

“It seems only natural to me.” He skirted a stand of trees that still had wisps of smoke wafting from it. There was nearly no understory left at all, and the ease of traveling the bare forest floor did much to offset her extra weight on Gérard’s back. “It is unicorn magic that I think is strange.”

“It’s very straightforward, though.” She reverted back to Equestrian entirely, not quite able to figure out what she wanted to say in Alce. “A spell is a certain structure of magic, and always the same one. Casting a spell is just making that structure. There’s nothing special about a spell, really. Certainly not like your magic.”

Gérard’s ears flicked backward, and then forward again. “I would not say it has to do with being special. It is simply what we require of ourselves. Competence, integrity, loyalty. Our works strive as we do and become better for it.

“That...makes a lot of sense, actually.” From all that Gérard had said of gryphons, it was hard to imagine them casually weaving spells like unicorns did. “Are all your magics from history?”

“Not all.” He tilted his head briefly to glance back at her. “When I was a hatchling, there was a weaver in our clan. She was a very good weaver, and her ropes and rugs were beyond compare. But once a year, for the winter feast, she would make a fishing net, and gift it to the poorest family of the clan. Such a net would never tangle or snag on the bottom, and always find fish, even in the worst years.”

“That’s a lot different than unicorn magic.” And it made her understand why Gérard had found her magic so upsetting at first. If for gryphons magic was the ultimate end of all their striving, every unicorn being able to cast at least some spells was incomprehensible.

“Yes.” His tone agreed with both what she said and what she thought. “I fear no gryphon would ever be able to truly accept that difference. It is too much a part of us.”

“But you accept it. Don’t you?”

“Tch.” Gérard made a soft feline noise, something not quite a laugh. “You have pointed out yourself I am not quite a gryphon.”

Rose swallowed. She felt that she should have been happy about the admission, but instead it seemed a small, sad thing. One more surrender.

“I do not mean to alarm you, Rose,” he added in pure Alce. “But we are being stalked.”

“By what?” All the other thoughts flew from her head.

“I do not know. There are three of them, two flanking and one downwind.” His ears swiveled as he halted, his head moving in sharp jerks. “Is there cover nearby?”

“Just trees.”

His beak clicked. “Then find us a clear space. I need the room to maneuver.”

She blinked, but looked around, gritting her teeth against the protests of her neck. “To your right. About a hundred feet.”

He turned and loped off through the trees as she tried to get a glimpse of what might be chasing them. But there was nothing except for the stillness and silence of the burned forest. What had seemed peaceful turned sinister as Gérard halted in the middle of an ashy clearing and dipped his shoulder for her to slide off. She hissed slightly as the impact jarred her burn, but stayed silent otherwise, not wanting to distract Gérard from his tracking.

“One is moving upwind. Meant to flush us toward the others.” Rose blinked. But of course Gérard was familiar with hunting tactics.

He sniffed the air, which was suddenly split by a noise halfway between a roar and a screech, echoing through the trees. At the same moment, Rose smelled smoke. “Firewolves,” she whispered.

His head snapped toward her. “You know what these are? All I smell is smoke.”

“I’ve only heard of it. Timberwolves - forest spirits - are like their home. Green in summer, bare in winter. And after a fire, they burn. And they’re slightly larger than me,” she added belatedly.

“Tch. Perhaps I can draw them off. They would be easier to deal with one at a time.”

“No, they’re hunting me,” Rose said, realizing it even as she said it. “I’m the one that’s burned.”

“Then stay where you are.”

She laughed softly. “Do you think I would run?”

“No, I do not,” he said, and she realized he wasn’t talking about her wounds at all. Then the first firewolf stepped into the clearing and he turned to face it.

The timberwolf she’d seen once, at a distance, had been made of sprouting branches and roots and had green-glowing eyes set deep in woody sockets. This one was made of charred black embers, flaring and dying in a shifting pattern of angry heat. Its eyes, too, were orange, with the hunger of unrestrained fire behind them. It called again, its terrible voice clawing at the air, and the other two answered.

Gérard roared back.

It was loud and deep and wild, vibrating up through her hooves and jolting down her spine. She’d never heard that kind of noise from him, or from anything, and it was powerful enough to stop the firewolf at the edge of the clearing. Then it snarled at him and stepped into the clearing, circling inward, head held low.

The second one appeared at the edge of her vision, and she turned her head carefully to catch the third emerging from behind a cluster of trunks. They were bigger than she remembered, though she’d only seen the one, and with the three of them she had no idea how Gérard intended to defend her.

He didn’t. Instead, he attacked, bounding forward at the first of the three in a sudden explosion of motion. The firewolf rounded on him, snarling and snapping, but it was far too slow. Gérard vaulted into the air, his talons flashing out to dig into the firewolf’s head, but only for a moment as one rear paw kicked straight through its neck. There was a crunching, splintering sound and a puff of sparks as he hurled the head away on a roll, digging into the ashy ground and sprinting back toward her. Behind him, the body collapsed into a jumbled pyre.

The other two were closing on her. She gritted her teeth against a new throb of pain, her burn flaring in response to the flickering embers of the firewolf’s eyes. Gérard hurtled past and smashed into a second firewolf, tearing it to flinders before the heat of its body could so much as scorch him.

The third came on. It would have been close, even as fast as Gérard was, but Rose had no intention of simply watching and hoping. She lofted her canteen and hurled its contents in the face of the onrushing firewolf.

There was a hiss and a burst of steam, and the spirit froze for an instant, whether in shock or pain or confusion she couldn’t tell. But it stopped long enough for Gérard to get there, and then it was all over. He limped away from the smouldering pile of wood to join her at the center of the clearing, puffing only slightly.

“That was good thinking, Rose.”

“I didn’t know if it’d work,” she admitted. “I still don’t know if I did more than just surprise it.”

“Surprise is a weapon, and it was sufficient.”

“I suppose it was.” She smiled, but it faded soon enough. “We should leave before they reassemble themselves.”

He snorted. “Forest spirits. I should have considered they would come back.” Then he shook his head. “No, Rose. They are hunters, and I understand that much. Wait.”

She nodded uneasily. If Gérard thought thought he could accomplish something, she was willing to see it through. He stood next to her, his head swiveling as he watched the three piles of burned wood, waiting for one to move. The one closest to them twitched, shivered, lifted up again into a wolflike shape, and the moment its eyes ignited again Gérard snarled in its face.

It snarled back and danced away a few steps, swinging its head left and right. Then it called once more, the noise tearing at her ears even as it pulled the other two firewolves back together. They trotted over warily, circling Gérard and Rose to join the first one, growling.

Gérard roared again, even louder than before, making the ground seem to shake and driving the trio back another few paces. They growled at him and he planted himself in front of her, snapping and growling. Then, bemused, she watched them turn and trot off back into the woods.

“Did you just...talk to them?”

“In a way.” Gérard offered her his shoulder, and she gripped it as he hauled her onto his back again. “I let them know we are not prey. And since we are not, they will not hunt us.”

“That...makes sense.” That sounded simple enough, but Gérard was used to thinking in terms of predator and prey. She was not. Gérard clearly didn’t think of her as prey anymore, but he had once. Presumably, all of gryphonkind saw ponies as prey, and she didn’t think winning the war would change that. He’d said before that the most dangerous prey was also the most worthy and enticing. For someone like Kree, ponies would only become more tempting.

Yet she’d made the transition somehow. And it wasn’t solely Gérard’s perception of her. He seemed confident that she would be able to garner the same respect from the other gryphons, albeit with his support, so it was at least as much her doing as his. It was a path she had taken.

And it wasn’t something ponies could simply demand from gryphons. That would be like asking them not to fly, or breathe. For the war to truly end gryphons would have to stop seeing ponies as prey, and that was something that could only be earned.

Stay The Course

By the time morning came again, she had decided to try walking. Gérard hadn’t complained, or even showed any particular strain even if they did stop sooner than usual, but it wasn’t fair to expect him to carry her until she was comfortable again. He had his own injuries and, if nothing else, it would be far better to walk into the camp under her own power. That was still weeks away, but for all she knew without direct unicorn intervention the burns would last that long. She wished Mercy were still with her.

She gritted her teeth as she crawled out of the tent, wobbling to her hooves and taking a few experimental steps. The scab pulled alarmingly but held, and each time her shoulder flexed it felt like a hook was being dragged across it. Her neck wasn’t much better off, but it didn’t seem like it would knock her off her hooves this time.

Her limp matched Gérard’s, and she had a renewed respect for his endless days of following her with only a bit of inadequate stitching for his shoulder. Gérard himself watched her with a tilted head and bright-eyed curiosity as she circled the tent, but forewent comment until she began to pack the tent. “Is it healing, then, Rose?”

“Not much yet,” she admitted. “But enough to get me walking, at least.”

“And sooner is better,” Gérard agreed. “Events seem to conspire against us. I would rather be back among gryphons, where I know what the dangers are.”

“I don’t think I’m quite ready for that yet,” Rose said, taking out her maps for the daily ritual. “I know I’ll have to soon enough, but I’m not quite up to other gryphons.”

Gérard came up beside her to study the map, a close presence at her shoulder. “You do have time, but I think you underestimate yourself. We have gone at least two days without upsetting each other.”

She glanced sideways at him to see the glimmer of humor in his golden eyes and laughed softly. “I don’t think that’s it. It’s more...before I met you, I just thought of gryphons as the enemy. Some distant monsters we were fighting. And when I try to imagine your camp, that’s still there.”

“I understand, Rose,” Gérard said. “You and I - and our races - have had poor introductions to each other. My first reflex is still to think of other ponies as prey, which is no more fair than calling us monsters. Yet I do not know if we could have started any differently.”

She put away the maps and started off again, considering the idea as a distraction from her shoulder’s constant complaints. “I don’t think so,” she said at last. “We wouldn’t know how to deal with the idea of testing strength, and without marks we wouldn’t know how to trust your roles. Something would happen eventually.”

“Tch.” Gérard clicked his beak behind her. “I do not like to think these things are fated.”

“I don’t think it’s so much fated as just the way we are. Just like I find paths and you keep the peace. Gryphons and ponies are too different to just get along without knowing each other. And neither of us can know each other in the way we’re used to.” In fact, she had to admit that the pony reliance on cutie marks and community wasn’t likely to work well with any other race. Not that the gryphon method would fare much better.

“Then we shall have to change what we know. Or the way we are.”

She glanced back at him, moving her head only the smallest amount. “If I’m going to convince the other gryphons to do either of those things, you’re going to have to teach me more Alce. And tell me what to expect when we get there.”

“Yes.” Once again he let the single word stand for a multitude of replies and began to tell her, in Alce, about where they were headed.

When Gérard had called it a camp, or even encampment, she’d been thinking of something like what she and her friends had made. Something small and a little bit makeshift. But this was a military camp, and it had over eighty gryphons in it.

Most of them weren’t actually warriors, but rather the sailors for the ship that had brought them there. Now they served as support and foraging parties, turning a bare beach into a liveable, if temporary, town. They had only carried sixteen military gryphons, two wings, though of course now there were four fewer than that.

“Gryphon warriors operate in pairs,” he told her as they reached the end of the fire scar. “We trust each other to guard our blind spots and follow through for each other. Then these pairs are arranged in pairs, and so on.”

“Kree was paired with you, wasn’t he?”

“Of course. He is quite competent, and it might have salved his ego.” Gérard shook his head. “Tch. It did not, but I am not certain what else may have worked.”

“You could have left him at the camp?”

Gérard laughed. “I was tempted. But I could not. I needed him for the mission.”

“Which you still haven’t told me about,” she pointed out.

He sighed. “I would like to, Rose. But I still think it is better that you are not involved, even if it may not matter in the end.”

“Traveling with you for a full month isn’t being involved?”

“Not yet, no.” Gérard’s eyes glinted. “Especially as that full month is only retreading two days of flight. None of the mystery is nearby.”

“You’re nearby.” She rolled her eyes. “But if you think I shouldn’t know, then I won’t press. What about the things I do need to know?”

“If Kree is in charge, as I expect he is, then we may expect little in the way of hospitality. Not because of his opinion of either you or I, but because he will have the encampment strained to its limit to create forward posts. Beyond that, there is little I can tell you about the disposition of either forces or individuals until we reach it.”

“Hmm.” Rose nodded reluctantly. A month could change almost anything, and he’d already told her more about gryphons in general than she could have imagined.

“Though. They are somewhat unrefined.” His ears flicked briefly, back and then forward. “Good gryphons for the most part, but still soldiers and sailors.”

“Finally something that’s similar between gryphons and ponies.” She smiled and shook her head, remembering the short time they’d actually been out near the front. “Our soldiers and sailors can be pretty unrefined themselves.”

“I suspect that says more about fighting and sailing than it does about gryphons or ponies.”

“You fight. And more than most of your soldiers, I imagine. But you’re not unrefined.”

He made a soft, amused, feline noise. “The expectations of others can drive us to become better than we thought possible. And I have had many things expected of me, over the years.”

“I can imagine.” It seemed to fit with the gryphon ideal. But she had to wonder how well it applied to ponies, especially as ponies already had their cutie marks to drive them. But then, she’d never really felt changed by any of her work, despite having been all over Equestria. This time when she got home, she wouldn’t be the same at all. The more she considered it, the more credence she had to give Gérard’s idea of her shape.

As before, the day’s journey was somewhat abbreviated by her injuries, and she was barely able to stay up long enough to see Gérard return from his hunting. But at least he was back before full dark, which had to count for something.

The early morning sun broke through a sparse canopy, a red ridge of sandstone showing itself in glimpses through the needles. The land was coarser here, folding up into small ridges and valleys and forcing her to pick her way more carefully than before. She was more than ready to leave the pines behind for, according to her map, a scrubby plain.

She was still mulling over Gérard’s comment of expectations when she stumbled, almost literally, over a patch of furrowed ground. There had been trails here and there, cut by whatever lived in the wilderness, which made travel easier, but they hadn’t yet actually run into anything. Presumably the sound of voices and the scent of gryphon was enough to scare them off. But this was fresh and she even recognized it.

“Gérard,” she said, and he cocked his head at her. She swallowed, and then swallowed again, hesitating on the precipice of something she knew she couldn’t take back. “This is fresh trace of pig.”

“Pig?” He raised his eyebrows at her.

“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes at his blank look. “They don’t have pigs in Eyrie?”

“No. We hunt moa, and the occasional bear. Seals, in the proper season.”

“Oh.” She tried to consider hunting a bear for a moment before abandoning it for the topic at hoof. “Well, wild boar are nearly my size, so I thought they might work for a hunt. But I don’t know if I can do anything when I’m like this.” Rose tilted her head a touch, grimacing at the burn.

“Tch.” Gérard regarded her speculatively, clicking his beak once. “You are capable enough, Rose, injury or no. But of course, you have never hunted like this.”

“No.” And she had no idea what was even involved, beyond a few hazy concepts. After all her experience with Gérard, she knew that anything beyond that was likely wrong. All she’d learned about gryphons had avoided the issue, since Gérard had kept his hunting well away from her. And she was grateful for that. But if she wanted to really know them, she could no longer avoid it. “I don’t even know if pigs would work for hunting.”

“We shall have to see.” He flicked his ears, cocking his head as he focused ahead of them. “First we must find them.”

She nodded, stomach tight. Past pointing out that sign she was entirely lost, something that was more common of late. It still wasn’t something she was used to. “How do we start?”

“You have already begun tracking them.” He clicked his beak. “You need only continue. We cannot decide how to do anything if we do not know the terrain.”

“True.” She tried a smile, but it was shaky. The thought of hunting gnawed at her and, though she was committed, she was glad the start was so simple. She continued along the trail, with Gérard pacing patiently behind as she cast about for any fresh evidence of where the pigs might be. Sharp Eye would have been better at it, or even Gérard. Though he had to be used to seeing things from above.

Sure enough, it was quite a few minutes later that Gérard stopped, his ears twitching. “I hear something.”

“Nearby?” She whispered, straining her own ears to discern something useful beyond the occasional birdcall and the hiss of wind through grass. There was plenty of noise, but nothing she could pick out as belonging to pigs.

“About half a mile east.” He clicked his beak. “Downwind. We shall have to circle around so my scent does not frighten them off. It would be easier if we knew the terrain.” He cocked his head at her hopefully.

She laughed at the coltish gleam in his eyes. “I’ll see what I can do.” Half a mile was much further away than she could manage with most of her spells, but if she strained a bit she might be able to manage a general idea.

Rose closed her eyes, trying to ignore the background ache of her side while she focused her magic, casting it out in front of them. Bit by bit, she built up a coarse idea of the lay of the land, the ripple of hills and dells, building a map in her mind. It took longer than she had expected, but Gérard waited patiently until she opened her eyes, taking out the third map.

It was mostly blank, but it was meant as a working space. She cast the results from her spell onto it, filling in the rough lines of terrain with what trees and grasses she could see while Gérard peered over her shoulder. It was far from the usual exacting detail her maps provided, more of a sketch, but that didn’t seem to bother him. He traced a talon outward from the unicorn-and-gryphon marking at the left of the map over to a tree-lined ridge that sloped down to broad meadow. “I think they are here, in this shady draw.”

Again she wondered at his hearing. Being able to pinpoint the location by sound alone at that distance seemed impossible. But then, she’d made a map of it without being able to see it, so it shouldn’t have surprised her. Perhaps gryphons themselves were subject to the same magic as their tools, and over time became something more than just experience could explain. “So how do we approach them?”

“The wind is from west and north, so we shall circle south so I am not upwind of them.” He looked over at her. “You are not a problem for them, but I expect my scent might startle them. Or…” His ears flicked thoughtfully. “You are injured, and that might serve for what I have in mind. So we shall both take that route.”

She added the prevailing direction of the intermittent breeze to the working map and drew an uncertain line of travel around to the other side of the draw. “So it won’t matter that I’m not as quiet as you.”

“Not at all.” He clicked his beak. “In fact, it is all to the better, since it will mask any noise I make. Prey is not so spooked by one they do not regard as a predator.”

“Have you done this before?” He raised her eyebrows at him. “I can understand that you know how to hunt, but that’s not the same as how prey react to non-predators.”

He chuckled and flicked his tail in lazy insouciance. “I have used one form of prey to distract another more than once, both on a hunt and on the battlefield. But I admit this is the first time I have employed a stalking-pony.”

A smile tugged at her lips. “And what exactly should this stalking-pony do? Surely something more than standing there and watching.”

“Certainly.” He tapped the map again with his talon. “I will find a place for ambush here, at the end of the draw, and you’ll circle around to the top. Then you just need to walk toward them. You won’t panic them like I would, but they’ll still want to shy away from something wounded. That might draw hunters, after all.”

“Of course.” The smile turned into a grin, then vanished again. “This is a lot simpler than I thought it would be.”

“That is because of this map.” Gérard tapped it again. “It is much, much more complicated when you must decide all of these things on the wing.”

Rose nodded. She found it hard to consider what not having a map was like, sometimes, since she’d been carrying one all her life. If not in her hooves or bag, in her head as second nature. She swallowed. “Then I think I’m ready. As I’ll ever be, at least.”

He nodded back at her, suddenly solemn. She was grateful he understood, at least in part, how difficult this was for her. Even if she were only walking, the intent to hunt was there. “Lead the way, Rose.”

She took point once again, following the line she’d drawn for them on her map. Even though it wasn’t strictly necessary for her to be quiet, according to Gérard, she still found herself trying to tread as lightly as possible. Beside her, the gryphon made no noise that she could hear. They stepped out of the tree cover, wading through the tall grass of the meadow. Rose kept her ears pricked for what Gérard might have heard, but couldn’t pick out anything in particular.

Eventually they drew near to the treeline that marked the pigs’ location, circling downwind as Gérard’s ears twitched and swiveled, his golden eyes fixed on something only he could see. He tapped her with one talon and pointed at a hillock nearer to their target, and she obediently changed course to guide him to it. Once there he hunkered down in the grass, pressing himself against the ground, and waved her onward.

She continued without him, pacing anxiously around to the northern end of the draw, where the trees marched out of the forest along the ridge. Even though all she had to do was walk, she was still worried about making some mistake, scattering the pigs off in the wrong direction. That worry even drowned out the part of her that quailed at setting up some poor animal for death at Gérard’s talons.

Her burn ached as she climbed the hill where the ditch of a wet-weather stream began. Here she could see more disturbed earth where pigs had rooted around in the soft, damp earth, and she began to follow the traces back downward. She heard the first grunts soon after, more annoyed than anything, and then she finally spotted them, spread out in a brief widening of the ditch.

It was a small sounder of young boar, ten or twelve of them with rudimentary tusks, and Rose breathed a sigh of relief. There was no doubt of Gérard’s abilities, but Sharp Eye had told her stories of how dangerous a full grown boar could be and she didn’t want that risk. Even the younger hogs she could see had to weigh nearly as much as she did, and were probably a lot tougher and meaner. But, fortunately, no more eager to fight than she was.

She stood on the slope above them as they grunted and snorted, milling about before sidling away from her, slinking down toward the meadow. Toward Gérard. She couldn’t see even a trace of his white and blue amid the grass, and she even knew where to look. Rose took a step forward as the boars filtered away and then immediately danced back again as one of them grunted at her, tossing its head in unmistakable warning.

“Sorry,” she apologized by reflex, as if it could understand. And watched it trot after its companions, down toward the ambush. Her gut clenched as she waited, tensing for something she knew was coming, but didn’t know when.

Gérard pounced.

She was expecting a roar, or shout, or a cry of some sort, but he simply appeared in a silent, blurred streak. He landed on the back of one of the boars, his talons sinking in just before the forelegs, almost as if it were a hug, his head dipping down and around in a quick, sharp movement. She stared, frozen, as in the next instant his head jerked back and blood fountained out, spraying the grass and the animals ahead of it, and all became chaos.

The hogs screamed, forcing her to flatten her ears as they bolted in all directions, one rushing by on her left and another on her right, close enough for her to feel the wind of their passage, as Gérard vaulted off his target. The boar gurgled ghoulishly, wobbling forward three steps before collapsing onto bloodsoaked grass. The last rustles of the fleeing boars died away, leaving a deafening silence in their wake.

Gérard spat a chunk of flesh from his beak, and Rose took a few steps sideways before emptying the contents of her stomach onto the ground. She found she was shaking, even though all she’d done was watch, and her guts churned uneasily as unwanted visions of the ruined camp pressed down on her. All she could do was close her eyes and breathe deeply, focusing on the expression’s Gérard’s face had held in the moment of the kill.

There was no joy or exultation in it, but neither was there sorrow or shame. His was the face of someone performing a task, no more and no less. It was at the same time comforting and disturbing, a final confirmation that there was no monster lurking somewhere inside Gérard, but there was also something a pony could never be.

Of course, she’d already known that.

She opened her eyes and tottered her way over to where Gérard stood, his face smeared with blood and bits of cut grass stuck in his mane. The sight made her hiccup as a compromise between laugh and scream. A few feet away the boar continued to twitch in a macabre parody of life, but Gérard ignored it and focused on her, his feline tongue flicking out absently to lick at his beak. “That was well done, Rose.”

“Thanks,” she managed, her voice shaking. “I don’t think I did much, though. Just walked.”

He cocked his head at her. “A hunt is more than the final kill. It was you who found the traces of prey, and you who made the map, and you who flushed them out. On balance, you did more than I.”

“I...hadn’t thought of it that way,” she said, her eyes shying away from the twitching corpse nearby, the smell of blood choking her. Yet she still felt an odd glow of pride. “I’m glad we were successful.” And she was, for Gérard’s sake, though she never wanted to have to watch him kill again.

“We were,” he agreed cheerfully, then sobered. “I know it was difficult for you, Rose. But I think it was important.”

“Yes,” she agreed. It was something she had to know. No matter how much she hated it, she could never understand gryphons without understanding a hunt. “Important, but I’m glad it’s over.”

“It is not over yet,” he disagreed.

“No?” She couldn’t help but cringe.

“The kill is not the end. A hunt yields sustenance.” He clicked his beak. “Or at least something, if it is not a physical one. But a corpse is not preserved meat for a journey.”

Rose found herself nodding. Her idea of a hunt had shifted once, and it did again, expanding past the one moment that had preoccupied her thoughts. It was impossible to ignore the death, with its stink filling her nostrils, but now it was simply an inevitable part of a hunt rather than its purpose. “I’ll get firewood.”

“And I shall take care of this.” He looked over at the steaming, twitching pig carcass. “There are some things that are best eaten fresh, as well.”

“Such as?” Morbid curiosity prompted the question as she stepped away from the swath of blood soaking into the ground.

“Liver,” he said. “Tongue and brains.” His eyes glinted at her. “And I won’t even have to share.”

“I’m sure it’s good.” She smiled weakly and stepped away to breathe some fresh air and try to stop trembling. The simple process of gathering up deadwood, sticks, and twigs helped Rose recenter herself and give her space to think. In some ways it had been as bad as she expected, but the unpleasantness, the death, was removed from Gérard himself. And she had to admit that distance only came from knowing him. If the first time she had seen a gryphon had been on a hunt, she may never have been able to look past it.

By the time she’d put together a firepit, Gérard had the corpse gutted, and she gagged at the sight before looking away. “Death is never pretty,” he said, not chiding, simply observing.

“Then why -” She stopped herself as she considered the question she had been about to ask. “No, that is why death is important, isn’t it? Because you have to deal with it so much; you have to kill to survive. So you have to understand it better than ponies ever would think to.”

“That may be true,” Gérard said thoughtfully. “It is not something taken lightly. The effects of a kill extend past the moment it happens, and you are responsible for that. To hunt, to kill, is to be responsible.”

Expect The Worst

Gérard’s full and overfull saddlebags, not to mention the bundles of dried meat they both carried on their backs, let them make better time over the next few days, even with the burn slowing Rose’s steps. She didn’t need to wait the interminable hours for him to return from hunting, and he seemed to shake an edge of fatigue he’d borne since the beginning. The price was the tent smelling of dried meat every night, but that was better than Gérard reeking of fresh death.

During the days they spoke Alce. Rose wasn’t sure whether to credit her facility at the gryphon language to Gérard’s teaching, her learning, or the lack of distractions from the task. The terrain was open now, and broken here and there by sandstone outcrops leading to the rusty red tor to the south, which let her focus more on Gérard and the language than the ground underhoof. Though her tongue still tangled on some of the more intricate words, she had enough understanding that Gérard could talk to her entirely in Alce, without resorting to Equestrian to fill in gaps.

“I always wanted to be a warrior, even when I was very young,” he told Rose. “Though I think most cubs do. I hadn’t really done any fighting then, but I imagined myself as Gywnd the Golden, or Arawn Halfpaw.”

“Halfpaw? That’s an odd nickname.” She tilted her head to look over at him. Her burn still grumbled at the movement, but it was more of an ache than the sharp stab of the first day or two.

“Well, he lost two talons of his right forepaw to the jaws of a cirein-cròin that had swallowed three ships of his fleet. It was a noble enough injury, once he had killed it and hauled it back to shore. So I’d curl up two talons and pretend, running around the halls of my parent’s manor.” He waved his paw at her in demonstration.

“I imagine you were a terror.” Rose grinned, finding it somehow quite easy to imagine a tiny Gérard bouncing off the walls in pursuit of some imaginary monster. Possibly literally so, if gryphon cubs started flying as young as pegasus foals did.

“So my mother said,” he agreed. “In fact, one time - actually, I probably should not tell you this.” His eyes glinted again, the corners crinkling with humor.

“More secrets?” She smiled back at him.

“Nothing like that. It may simply damage my image of perfect dignity and grace.” He winked at her, and she laughed.

“Well now you have to tell me.” Rose narrowed her eyes. “I won’t let you get away with teasing me like that.”

“I would not hope not.” Gérard ruffled his wings and looked upward, remembering. “It was a particularly bad winter, so we were stuck inside, Kree and Harrun and I. That’s General Harrun now,” he added as an aside. “Of the three of us, I think he came closest to actually being a hero.

“Regardless, it was windy and snowing and I am afraid it was my idea to take some of the old talon-sheaths off the wall. They didn’t fit us, of course, but that hardly seemed to matter at the time.” He snorted. “At least we had enough sense to not fight each other with them. No, we wanted to be Arawn Halfpaw and his elite crew, hunting sea monsters like in the stories. Of course, the manor had a remarkable lack of sea monsters. It did, however, have fish.”

“Oh, no.” She tried and failed to suppress a grin. It was less the story, though she could see where it was going, as the tone of voice. It was rich, conspiratorial, and possessed a simple joy that all the hardships hadn’t dulled. It sounded good on him.

“Fortunately for the koi, the pond was outside and frozen over. But we did have barrels and barrels of smoked cod. Since I am certain you are not familiar with that, they are quite large. About the same size as us, at that age. So we took turns climbing into the barrel and throwing fish at each other, waving around these old, oversized talon-sheaths…”

Rose giggled. Though it was strange to imagine Kree as being cute, it was easy enough for Gérard and the mental image of three gryphon cubs hurling fish at each other was completely ridiculous. “And nobody interrupted you?”

“Well, it was a sleepy, cozy evening. The adults were, I think, glad for the quiet. Of course, it didn’t stop there. Little bits of fish all over the floor and us was bad enough, but for some reason Harrun decided to open the window. For the wind, I believe. But regardless, the cold and snow came swirling in and melted. And the wet turned all of that into mush.” His eyes twinkled. “And then, after we got bored and left, window still open, it froze to the floor.”

“Eww.” Rose wrinkled her muzzle. She had more of an idea of what meat was like after Gérard had taken care of the pig carcass, but her imagination still failed her when it came to the scene he described.

“Yes. When we were found out, eventually, and after we had gotten all the fish bits out of our fur, we had to scrape the floor clean.” He snorted. “Swabbing the decks, I believe mother called it.”

“That sounds like my dad,” Rose said. “He always had some comment when I got into trouble with my friends.”

“You, get into trouble?” Gérard’s ears flipped back, then forward, and he canted his head at her. “Surely you jest.”

She snorted. “Well, foals will be foals. You’re going to insist on a story from me, aren’t you?”

“It would be only fair,” he agreed.

“Well.” She considered it as she picked her way across a shallow stream, hooves striking the rocks. “There was the incident with the maples, that one time.”

“Do tell.”

“Well, you have your heroes...when I was a foal, mine was Distant Shores. He was the first pony to set hoof in Zebrica, and Saddle Arabia. He spent a lot of time sailing, like your Arawn, but it was for exploration.”

“That seems appropriate to your talents,” Gérard murmured.

“Oh, I was always interested in that sort of thing, even before I got my mark. Besides, my village had so much forest and mountain around it there was plenty of room to lose yourself for an afternoon or so. And I’d go out all the time with my friends.”

“Goldy?” He asked. “Or Mercy?”

“No, I didn’t meet any of them until the war started.” She shook her head. “Mint Spear and Dawn Shade were the ones I grew up with. Earth pony and unicorn. But they had their own lives, and they left years ago, well before I did. But when we were foals we were practically inseparable.”

She skirted a lone pine, growing crookedly from a dip in the landscape. “It was spring, and for whatever reason we were out playing in the maples. In fact the name of the village is Maple Woods, since we make so much syrup. And in the spring the sap rises and we tap it into buckets. So imagine three foals running through rows and rows of trees with buckets full of maple sap hanging from them.”

“A recipe for disaster.” His beak clicked. “At least, so far as child-created disasters go.”

“Not immediately,” she said. “We did know not to upset the buckets. But that didn’t mean we stopped climbing trees in order to survey the land ahead or racing about like madmares in pursuit of some clue or another. So Mints was the Distant Shores of the moment, halfway up one of the trees and directing us two on the hunt for the lost civilization of the Crystal Kingdom. Which was last seen hundreds of miles to the north, but that didn’t stop us.”

“Nor should it,” her replied. “Wonder and hope are at least as important as cold reality.”

His comment made her pause for a moment, but it seemed to be no more than offhoof eloquence or another nugget of gryphon philosophy. Though it seemed ponylike enough to her. “I don’t think there’s much difference to foals. Even if we didn't find it, pretending we did was good enough. I don’t remember what we were celebrating, that never stuck with me. I do remember though that Mints was bouncing on a tree branch and slipped straight off, right down into a half-full bucket. It made more of a blub than a splash.”

“And I suppose you ran to her rescue?” His voice was rich with amusement, though she hadn’t gotten anywhere near the denouement.

“Oh, no need. The bucket slipped straight off the tree and slid down the hill on the last remnants of the spring ice, leaving a trail of sap behind it. Minty crawled out giggling and hiccuping and covered in sap and of course we thought that looked incredibly fun. So Dawn and I went to get our own buckets.”

“Of course.” Gérard’s tail flicked idly back and forth. “Fun is a clear mandate.”

She looked at him suspiciously, but couldn’t tell how much he was joking. “Dawn’s bucket was also half-full, but mine had filled up nearly all the way when I jumped in. I wasn’t expecting it to be so...sticky, and since there was more it soaked me more than the others. And it went further. In fact, it went all the way into a leaf pile nobody had cleaned up.”

“Worse than fish bits?”

“Maybe.” Rose snorted. “Of course Minty and Dawn joined me and in about twenty seconds we were just foal-shaped blobs of leaves and twigs and dirt. But we didn’t go in until the sap had dried enough that it was actually becoming uncomfortable to walk. And then, talk about lectures! And a bath to end all baths.”

Gérard chuckled, a deep, throaty rumble that she could almost feel despite the distance between them. “The troubles of simple times. Children, it seems, are alike all over.”

“Well, not completely. I don’t think you’d find many foals hurling fish at each other.”

“There is that,” he agreed. “We are hunters even as cubs, and you are something else.”

“Well, ‘something else’ is at least better than prey,” she laughed.

He tilted his head at her, golden eyes twinkling. “If you refuse to be predator and refuse to be prey, then you are stuck with it.”

“I think you’ll need to just call us ponies. Unless you want to call us all - what was it you called me way back when? Unnatural and strange?” She raised her eyebrows at him.

“In my defense,” Gérard said mildly. “I was not in the best state of mind.”

“You’re forgiven,” she said, smiling.

“That is a relief,” he said, his tone as light as hers, but then he sobered. “I have had a thought, Rose. I know it is still some days until we reach the camp, but how long until we reach that line of forward posts?”

She blinked and took out her maps, finding the line of their travel was uncomfortably close to the theoretical line of attack that Kree would take. It must have been talk of Kree that reminded him. “Not long. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Perhaps earlier,” he opined. “If the scouts spot us. I doubt they are patrolling properly. There aren’t enough of them. But it is something we need to be prepared for.”

She swallowed. “Prepared how?”

“First, this.” He stopped and reached into his own saddlebags, retrieving the box he had been carrying, still wrapped in oilcloth. “Until I know how things stand, I would rather someone who is neither predator nor prey carry it. I cannot tell you what it is, but I would ask that you hold it until I am certain it is safe to return it.”

“Of course.” She took the box from him, which was as oddly heavy as she remembered. Of course she couldn’t ask what was in it, so she asked the next best thing. “Why wouldn’t it be safe for you to have it?”

Gérard sighed. “It is possible that the first scout we meet will try to execute me as a traitor. I do not think it is likely, but if it happens the camp will not be safe for you.”

“Or for you!” She protested, her stomach tightening at his words. “You can’t return if they mean to kill you.”

“Perhaps not.” He rubbed at his beak. “But even if that is not the case, a guest is afforded privileges and amenities a soldier is not. Whether or not he is a commander.”

“You’re afraid someone will take it?”

“Yes. I know I can trust you to hold it and not open it. I do not think that is true for any gryphon at the camp.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Someday you’re going to tell me what’s in that box and what your mission was. It isn’t fair to tease me like this.”

He laughed, though quietly. “When all this is over, gladly. Until then I do not think the world will be fair to any of us.”

They forewent a fire that night. Neither of them wanted to attract the attention of a stray gryphon when they were not at all prepared. Not that Rose could imagine ever being truly ready for it. She had come to know Gérard and like him, but found it difficult to extend that to gryphons she hadn’t yet met, especially ones that might be intent on killing Gérard, or her.

When they set out again, Gérard was quiet, his ears swiveling back and forth and his eyes on the sky. There were patches of cloud here and there, but the deep blue of morning was mostly unobstructed, and she found her own eyes studying it for some speck that wasn’t a bird. Not that she expected to see anything before he did.

As the day stretched on, she began to think that perhaps Kree hadn’t set up the posts, or even worse, the gryphons had left and there was nothing and no one within hundreds of miles. But just as the sun reached its zenith Gérard stopped abruptly, cocking his head. “There is someone,” he whispered.

“Do you know who?” She whispered back, straining her eyes and ears for some hint of the other gryphon.

He shook his head. “We’ll have to find out. I want you to take cover downwind just in case.”

Her throat tightened. “All right,” she said, her mouth suddenly dry. She hesitated a moment, then reached out to put a hoof on his shoulder. “Be careful, Gérard.”

“I shall do what I can,” he said, suddenly still.

“Not good enough,” she said, pressing her muzzle against his shoulder, scratchy and hard and not at all like a pony’s. “Stay safe. Please.”

“If you ask like that, I suppose I must,” he said, his voice suddenly thick. His talons brushed through her mane and rested lightly on her own shoulder, the points as sharp as ever but no longer threatening. “Go take shelter, Rose. We will see who I call down.”

She pulled away reluctantly, trotting over to crouch down in the grass by a stand of trees and tearing off hunks of grass to cover her colors and break up her form. It was a technique of Gérard’s, though she certainly wasn’t waiting in ambush for whoever might drop from the sky. She kept an eye on the horizon, though, and her muscles stayed tense. Gérard tilted his head back, took a breath, and let out a piercing avian cry, nothing in Alce, just an earsplitting gryphonic sound. Then he waited, and she watched the horizon to the east, waiting for one of the specks to turn into a gryphon silhouette.

One did. A figure of white and tawny brown sped into view, circled, and then dropped down to land in front of Gérard with easy grace, ears focused forward as he stared at the other gryphon. “Wing-Captain!” He said, his Alce sounding far more guttural than Gérard’s. “You’re alive!”

“Should I not be?” Gérard’s voice was friendly and dangerous all at once, a tone that had never been directed at her even at the very beginning. “Report, Scout Veshas. What are you doing out here?”

Veshas straightened to attention. “Patrolling Advance Posts Four, Five, and Six, sir. As ordered.”

Gérard didn’t look in Rose’s direction, but the swish of his tail betrayed his satisfaction at having guessed right. “As ordered by Kree?”

“Yes, sir. Wing-Captain Kree.”

“So I thought. And how did Wing-Captain Kree explain my absence? As well as that of Grizelda and Arvel and Glyn? An entire half of a wing?”

“Sir. He said your interpretation of our orders was...questionable, and he removed you from command when you refused to attack a small pony force. The others were killed in the fight.”

“Well, that is not entirely inaccurate.” Gérard clicked his beak. “But I will have to discuss that with Kree.”

“Yes, sir.” Veshas seemed more than ready to pawn Gérard off on someone else. “Come with me, sir.” He spread his wings, but stopped as Gérard shook his head.

“I am grounded, Veshas.” He spread his own wings in demonstration, and the right one drooped. “Where is your wingmate?”

“Patrolling the other forward posts, sir.” The scout’s voice had changed slightly, becoming more stiff and formal. Gérard had said that scouts, like all gryphon military, were meant to work in pairs. Veshas probably wasn’t happy he’d been split from his partner.

“Then go get him,” Gérard instructed. “It will take both of you to carry us back to command.”

“Us, sir?”

“Yes.” He nodded in Rose’s direction, and she stood up, walking toward Veshas, shedding grass and hoping she didn’t look as nervous as she felt.

Veshas’ attention locked on her in a more hungry version of Gérard’s focus. “You brought prey with you?”

“I am not prey,” she said, even managing a credibly level tone as she advanced on them, and behind Veshas she saw the corners of Gérard’s eyes wrinkle with good humor.

“Indeed not,” he said. “She is my companion and guest. We have journeyed together and hunted together. I will vouch for her.”

For a moment it looked like Veshas would protest, but then he glanced back at Gérard and collected his composure again. “Yes, sir. I’ll be back with Tarn as soon as possible.” He gave Rose another look, mingled confusion and contempt and curiosity, and took to the air.

“You had me worried about that!” She accused him. “But he didn’t even shout.”

“Well. One of the warriors would have been more difficult. Or even Tarn. But Veshas cares little for either Kree or myself and certainly would not risk himself on Kree’s account. It does help that Kree did not anticipate my reappearance.”

“It’s been a month,” Rose pointed out. “Why would he have thought you’d be coming back?”

“He knows me.” Gérard looked to the sky. “Tch. He should know better than to separate the scouts, too. I suspect controlling the camp may be more than he is capable of.”

“You did mention he wasn’t good at command.” Rose sat down next to Gérard, watching the dwindling figure of Veshas. “So what are you going to do?”

“Take back control from Kree. And then…” He sighed. “Go home, I think. There is little we can do here, now. And perhaps there is some good to be done at the front.”

“You’d go back to fighting ponies?” She stared at him. He couldn’t possibly mean it that way.

Gérard’s ears drooped, and he rubbed slowly at his beak. “I would rather not. I was thinking appropriate lines of retreat, and terms of surrender.”

“Of course.” Rose put a reassuring hoof back on his shoulder. Even after all this time she could only guess at what that meant for him. His own surrender, so many years ago, had to weigh heavily on his mind. But she thought they’d both be glad to see the war over.

He tilted his head slightly to peer at her. “A warning,” he said. “Tarn’s wife was killed very early in the war. He is here because he had difficulty following orders at the front.”

“Oh.” Her ears flattened. That didn’t bode well for the next meeting. “I’ll try not to provoke him.”

“Merely being here would be enough. You should be safe, but I will not risk having him carry you back to camp.”

She’d caught the implication earlier, but she hadn’t really thought about it. The idea of relying on a gryphon that wasn’t Gérard to fly her into a gryphon camp didn’t have much appeal, but of course she had to. It would cut days off their journey. “At least Veshas doesn’t seem to hate me.”

“I suspect that is as much you can hope for. They are soldiers and you are the enemy. But you are not a soldier yourself, and a guest. It will be difficult for you both.”

“I know.” She nodded, then the corners of her muzzle twisted upward. “But isn’t that the gryphon way?”

He laughed. “Do not tell them that. They might take it the wrong way.”

It didn’t take long for Veshas to return with another gryphon in tow. Tarn was black and a dark, deep blue, much larger than Gérard, and his sharp eyes fixed on her the moment he landed. “What is it doing here?” He demanded flatly. “Where did you even get it?”

“My name is Compass Rose,” she said firmly, but he ignored her, rounding on Gérard.

“You’re gone for a month and you come back with a piece of meat as a guest?” His ears were flattened against his skull, his wings half-spread. “And you teach it our tongue? Have you finally gone insane?”

“She has been my guide,” Gérard said calmly. “She has more than earned my respect.”

“She!?” Tarn snapped his beak, an unpleasant gesture that Rose had never seen before. “Maybe it’s just been so long for you that you’ve been reduced to trying to mate what you eat.”

“Tarn!” Gérard’s voice was cold, icy. Veshas took a step back even though the tone wasn’t directed at him. Rose found herself blushing furiously. “This does not become you, Scout Tarn. She is a civilian and a guest. Would you treat a gryphon this way?”

“It’s not a gryphon!” Tarn roared.

“But you are,” Gérard said in frigid disapproval. “Has your hatred burned out your honor and your dignity? Are you prepared to make yourself worse than me?”

Tarn stared at Gérard for a long moment, then folded his wings as he visibly brought himself under control. “No,” he said. “Sir.”

“I understand you, Tarn.” Gérard’s voice held weary memory. “I will not ask more of you than you can give. All you need do is keep a civil tongue in your head and your talons to yourself.”

“Yes, sir,” Tarn said, his voice hard and contemptuous.

“And you and Veshas need to take us to the camp. I am grounded and she is no pegasus.”

“Yes, sir,” Tarn repeated, clearly unenthusiastic about the idea.

Gérard’s eyes glinted. “I am sure Kree has had you flying patrols for nearly a month now. Even with that, surely your wings can bear such an old and crippled soldier as myself.”

Tarn grunted, but dipped his shoulder for Gérard. Rose took a breath and approached Veshas. “I guess you’re stuck with me.”

He cocked his head at her, brows furrowed. “I suppose so,” he said cautiously, confusion evident in his voice. She clearly wasn’t acting as he expected, but she took that as a good sign. So long as she didn’t act like prey, there was some safety. He crouched down, and she climbed onto his back, clinging to the ruff of his mane as he launched himself into the air after Tarn.

The wind whistled past her ears, and she kept her eyes fixed on the smudge of Gérard and Tarn ahead of them. Her stomach was tight, both from the height and the close presence of a gryphon that didn’t seem to even recognize her as a person. Yet, some minutes into the flight his voice came floating back. “So the old man taught you Alce?”

“It seemed a good idea. It wouldn’t be fair to Gérard if he always had to talk for me.” She considered for a moment, then added something more honest. “And I’d rather know what you were saying about me.”

Veshas barked a laugh. “You may regret that. You’ll find no love for ponies among us.”

“I know. I’m the enemy to you. But gryphons can still respect an enemy.”

“One worth respecting. But you?”

“You’re talking to me. That’s a start.”

Veshas tilted his head slightly, glancing back at her, then grunted and flew on in silence.

Mind Your Manners

The gryphon encampment did not look too far different from the pony ones she’d seen years ago. It was somewhat more vertical, with dozens of broad sheltered platforms set on top of wooden pilings, but there were even more tents still on the ground. And in the bay beyond there was a large ship, bare-masted but with a carved figurehead on the prow.

And of course there were the gryphons. They weren’t as brightly colored as pegasi, but they flashed blue and green and white, circling the camp or moving through it, or even swimming in the bay. As soon as the nearest of them spotted the passengers the two scouts bore, they called it out to the entire camp. With the wind in her ears, she could only pick out the words of the nearest. “The scouts found Wing-Captain Gérard, and a pony!”

“Idiots,” Veshas muttered, apparently to himself. He followed Tarn down in a sudden drop that made Rose’s stomach lift into her throat, and then suddenly they were on one of the platforms. She hastened to slide down before Veshas decided to dump her off himself. He wasn’t nearly as hostile as Tarn, but that didn’t mean he was happy to carry her about.

Rose took a few steps away from the bare edge, and tried to ignore the fiery glare Tarn turned on her. The entire camp smelled of gryphon, and she tried to calm the hammering of her heart as she kept a wary eye on the predatory figures darting through the air. At least none of them seemed interested in attacking, even if Tarn was clearly restraining himself.

“You have my thanks,” Gérard said. “Return to your posts.”

Tarn launched himself hard enough to make the platform creak and shudder, and Veshas followed suit a moment later. She was oddly disappointed, and realized she’d hoped Veshas would have had least had some parting comment for her. But perhaps it was too much to ask.

“Ready to meet Kree?” Gérard had his head cocked at her, and she realized the question was genuine.

“No, but that hardly matters.” She took in a deep breath and let it out, the tenseness turning to something close to nausea now. The scab on her burn still tugged at her when she moved, adding its own arbitrary prickles of pain to her discomfort. It almost buried the fear. Gérard nodded approvingly and pushed through the flap that covered the shelter’s entrance.

Rose followed.

There were four gryphons in the room, but she knew precisely who Kree was even though she’d never seen him before. Though slightly smaller than Gérard, he dominated the room, his eyes a deep, arterial red that fixed her to the floor with a look. She stared back. His face was steel blue, with bright splashes of white across his brow and down his neck and turning into stripes along the rest of his body, all the way down to the end of his tail.

The eyes studied her, dismissed her, and turned on Gérard. “Where is it?” He snapped, and his accent was precisely the same as Gérard’s.

“It is good to see you too, Kree.” Gérard’s tone was amused again. Dangerous again. While Rose was tense and stiff, Gérard was relaxed, lazy. Calm.

Kree blinked, an expression flickering across his face that made the sickening churn of fear and anger inside her hiccup. He looked sad, tired. Ashamed. But then it was gone again and he narrowed his eyes at Gérard. “I am not in the mood for you.” He lifted a claw to beckon to the gryphon just behind him, one almost pure white and as large as Tarn. “Search him and chain him, and get that out of here and butcher it.”

“No.” Gérard’s single word came a moment before her own protest, and the shudder of disgust at the use of those last two words. The white gryphon stirred, but didn’t advance. “She is my guest. You would be a poor host indeed to offer her any sort of harm.”

“You cannot make prey a guest.” Kree’s voice was flat, brooking no argument. Rose disagreed anyway.

“I’m not prey.” Her words drew the gaze of all four gryphons, facing them, though Gérard only flicked an ear. “My name is Compass Rose and I’m a cartographer. I’ve traveled over two hundred miles with Gérard. I’ve even fought and hunted with him.” It came out more rushed and tangled than she would have liked, but it came out nonetheless.

“You’re a pony.” Now his voice was hammered steel, and Rose wondered how he could have gone from Gérard’s foalhood friend to this.

“Yes. But I’m a civilian pony, and a guest. I didn’t think gryphons executed civilians and guests.”

“Kree,” Gérard said gently. “This is my command again. And think. Do not give orders you would later regret.”

“Your command?” Kree stalked out from behind the desk, tail lashing, wings rustling. The white gryphon shadowed him, circling around to flank Rose. The other two watched with mild startlement, and she realized they had to be sailors, not part of the warrior wings. “Someone who refuses to engage the enemy cannot be a commander. Someone who simply gives up cannot be a commander. “

“You cannot always win by force. Do you intend to harass the entire southern border with five wings of sailors and one wing of soldiers? You have separated your scouts, and you know you should not. There is no victory to be had here, Kree.”

“What has made you so terrified of winning? When you merely need snatch it with your talons?” He held up his own talons, curling them in as if to seize some invisible prey.

“You cannot win here, Kree.” Gérard’s voice hardened. “But I can. Must I demonstrate that?”

“Yes.” Kree snarled, stepping back a pace and lashing his tail, muscles tensing. “Show me you still have fire in your belly.”

Gérard stepped sideways, circling around Kree and away from Rose in the confined space. She lifted a hoof by reflex as it to follow him, but stopped herself in time, scattered and distracted. The white gryphon did move, taking two steps toward the pair. Rose swallowed and, with another glance at Gérard, stepped in front of him. She only had Gérard’s talk of duels and her own understanding of gryphon honor to go by, but that was enough. “That’s just between them, isn’t it?”

He turned his gaze on her and if she hadn’t already been marinating in fear she would have screamed. The cool blue eyes held neither passion nor dispassion, armored as if there was nothing behind them at all. Those eyes watched her for a moment, his entire body betraying no emotion at all, and then blinked. “Yes,” he said, in a strange feathery whisper. His head shifted slightly and she saw ragged scars on his throat, under the fur. “You are right. They must settle things to their own satisfaction.” His eyes flicked from her to the pair without changing their chilling non-expression.

She followed suit, glad to have a reason to look away from that disconcerting face, though having to watch Gérard fight was hardly better. He’d shrugged off the saddlebags and pack, the dried meat spilling onto the floor, but Kree was clearly better rested and uninjured. She had no idea if Gérard was good enough despite all that to win whatever fight might come, but she took heart from the fact that he didn’t seem too worried. Or too calm.

Then Kree moved, and he was even faster than Gérard. He launched forward in a rush she could barely follow, a brief flap of his wings blowing papers off the desk before his talons scraped the wood of the wall behind where Gérard had been. She’d seen him fight before, but never against another gryphon, and she watched in horrified fascination as he seemed to dance.

Kree tried to close with quick rushes, claw and talon splintering the wooden walls and floors, and Gérard simply swayed aside, a blur of movement and flashing talons. But he wasn’t winning. A thin trickle of blood appeared under one of his ears, and another on his foreleg, a few drops soaking instantly into the floor. A noise escaped her muzzle, and Gérard’s eyes flickered to her for a moment. He winked.

The next time Kree closed Gérard grappled with him, the two of them tumbling over the floor and smashing through the desk, sending broken wood and vellum into the air and driving the sailors back a few steps. They slammed to a halt on the far side of the room, with Gérard’s talons around Kree’s throat.

Kree froze.

“You wanted to know where it was,” Gérard said, quiet and friendly. “Because you attacked me so close to Equestrian soil, and because you couldn’t stand to check if I was properly dead and had no further orders on me, the ponies have it. Not that it matters, because by now there is no time left.”

“But - “

“No.” Gérard cut him off, and Rose cautiously began to make her way toward them, the white gryphon now shadowing her as she picked her way around fragments of desk. “You never really believed the reports, but we are losing. We have lost. The dragons could have given us enough time to negotiate a proper peace. But that was a month ago, and it would have taken both of us.”

Rose blinked. She still didn’t know exactly what Gérard’s mission had been, but if it had involved bringing the dragons in on the side of the gryphons she was just as glad he hadn’t finished it. Though she’d never seen one, and there hadn’t been any troubles in her lifetime, the stories were enough.

“Instead, you decided you knew better than I, or even Aida, and now you are responsible for the deaths of Grizelda and Arvel and Glyn. And you are also responsible for all those who have lost their lives at the front in these weeks. How many can your honor bear, Kree? How many have you sacrificed for your own sense of rightness?”

“And you killed my friends,” Rose cut in. Kree’s eyes flicked from Gérard to her, his beak closing with a snap. She found it hard to believe after all this time she was finally facing the one responsible, and the surreality of the moment left her fumbling for words. “Goldy and Sharps and Sky and Mercy and Scarlet. They’re all dead because of you and we weren’t even supposed to be fighting! We were surveyors! We were out here because it’s away from the fighting! You just attacked us because we were there. How do you answer for that?”

Gérard, oddly, looked at the white gryphon behind her rather than at Rose herself. “It is bad enough I must listen to you,” Kree said harshly. “But must I listen to prey lecture me too?”

“Would prey lecture you?” Gérard lifted his eyebrows, his tone staying light and easy. “She is right. Gryphons should hunt for food, or fight with honor. A survey team in the middle of nowhere is not valuable, and they would not have threatened our mission. I understand what you were thinking but it has not worked.” Again he looked past Rose. “Do you agree, Ganon?”

“Yes.” The strange, whispering voice came from behind her. “He is right, Kree. We cannot fulfill our duties and obligations here your way.”

Kree glared for a moment then seemed to collapse in on himself, his body sagging. “Very well,” he said, reaching up to push Gérard’s talons away from his throat. Gérard stepped back and Kree rubbed at his beak in a strangely familiar gesture. It was unsettling to hear Gérard’s style of words and see his gestures from another gryphon, and one so different. “Now what?”

“We go back.” Gérard’s voice was flat now, edged. “I will answer for my failures, and you will explain yours to Aida. And we will consider how we will pay the debts of all the deaths we are responsible for.”

“Gryphon and pony,” Rose added, and Kree’s head tilted slightly to regard her, his blood-red eyes narrowed.

“So it would seem.” It was the first time he’d really addressed her, and she felt some satisfaction at the emotion in his voice, though it fell far short of the half-imagined confrontation that had been picking at the back of her mind throughout the entire journey. She was a bit muddled within herself, knowing he needed to face something stricter than Gérard’s lecture for his transgressions, but unable or unwilling to envision the nature of it.

“Captain,” Gérard said, and one of the sailor gryphons still at the periphery of the room answered.

“Aye?”

“Get the Windrunner ready. We’ll be sailing as soon as we pack up here. Sometime tomorrow, I would think.”

“Aye.” He beckoned to his companion and stumped out.

“Ganon, since I am grounded, an elevated command post will not work for me. Take Rose and requisition one of the tents for me.”

“Yes, sir.” Ganon whispered, and turned. Rose widened her eyes at Gérard, not at all comfortable with the idea of going off into the middle of the camp with only an incredibly strange gryphon for company, but he nodded at her and she turned to follow Ganon. She had to trust his judgement, here.

As soon as she stepped outside the flap she was conscious of all the predator’s eyes on her. There seemed to be even more gryphons now, and not just in the air. They were everywhere, perching on top of things in the way pegasi did, and even if they weren’t all staring at her it felt that way. She caught snatches of conversation, some speculating what she was doing there, others about the flavor of her meat or even lewd elaboration on what Tarn had said. But Ganon’s presence seemed to act as a deterrent, and none of them approached.

He took Gérard’s order more literally than Rose expected, and she squeaked as his massive talons wrapped firmly, though gently, around her barrel and lifted her off the platform. It was just a short swoop to the tent Ganon had chosen, one with a pennant on a pole in front of it, but she still felt wobbly when he set her down. Ganon either didn’t notice or affected not to, sweeping past her and through the open front.

Rose followed, and nearly collided with another gryphon. “Why, you brought us lunch!” She said, eyes sparkling with something very like malice as she reached for Rose. Ganon moved before Rose could recoil, and with a dull, meaty thump the other gryphon was sent tumbling to the back of the tent.

“This is Compass Rose, the Wing-Commander’s guest,” Ganon said in his unsettling whisper. “You will treat her accordingly.”

The other gryphon paused in the middle of picking herself up off the rush matting of the floor, eyeing Ganon with disbelief for a moment before drawing herself up to attention. “Yes, sir. My apologies, ma’am.”

Rose blinked. She had been expecting another brush-off, as with Kree, so she appreciated the apology perhaps more than she should. “Well, accepted, but what in Equestria possessed you to just attack on sight?”

“Don’t like ponies, ma’am,” she replied, not quite looking at Rose.

“Wing-Commander Gérard is moving his command post to this tent,” Ganon said. “Everyone clear out.”

“What’s our new berth, sir?” It was yet another gryphon, and Rose realized there were actually four in the tent along with Ganon and herself. It wasn’t like Rose’s tent, either, but a large, rough canvas covering with no floor. It was practically identical to the pony military tents Rose had seen once upon a time.

“Take the old command post. Doubletime, all.” The two of them watched the four gryphon soldiers gather up their belongings, which took hardly any time at all. Besides the bedrolls and saddlebags they had some pieces of armor and talon sheaths, but it only took them a few minutes to clear the woven mats that had been placed over the ground. They filed out, each of them giving Ganon salute, a clenched talon against their chest, and two of the four deigned to give her a nod.

That left her alone with Ganon.

He seemed content to wait in silence, but she felt compelled to ask a question.

“Were you there, at the attack on my camp?”

“Yes.” Between the feathered whisper and the dead eyes, it was impossible for her to tell what the word meant to him. She suppressed the images that evoked, regarding him and trying to discern anything at all about what he felt about ponies or herself. And failing.

“Would you have attacked on your own, if you knew we were civilians?”

“No.” He said. “That is not what an honorable soldier does.”

Gérard saved her from any more failed attempts at conversation, limping in through the front. “Ganon, you’re back under Kree. He’s in charge of the withdrawal now. And have someone bring me a bedroll.”

“Yes, sir,” he whispered, saluted, and ghosted out of the tent.

Alone with Gérard all the tension and fear seemed to drain away, as if she’d just shed a full cart, and the iron band around her chest loosened, letting her take a full, cleansing breath. “Is everything all right?” She asked, crossing over to him. The scratches had already stopped bleeding, leaving only matted fur and feathers.

“As well as can be expected. We were lucky Captain Sekal was there to see all that. I can handle the soldiers, but sailors can be more fractious when it comes to unexpected orders. But now he knows I’m in charge, and more importantly, that Ganon thinks so too.”

“Why Ganon? I thought he was just a tracker. And he’s…” She trailed off, not wanting to say anything impolite, but there was clearly something off about the gryphon.

“He is damaged,” Gérard finished for her. “Yes. He can not tell the difference between cruelty and kindness, between justice and vengeance. Between a word spent well or one spent ill. And he knows this. So he clings to honor and duty and obligation, to keep himself from becoming a monster.”

“Sweet Celestia,” she murmured. That sounded terrifying, both for him and everyone around him.

“Yes,” he agreed. “But he also has no personal loyalties, no ego, no bias. His judgement has a strange credibility of its own.”

A credibility that Gérard lacked, with his history. She couldn’t think of any pony equivalent, but it was clear enough regardless. And it explained why Gérard would trust Ganon to carry her around the camp. Ganon might be the only person within hundreds of miles that genuinely didn’t care that she was a pony. “So what now? Do you really think we’ll be leaving tomorrow?”

“Perhaps.” He stretched, pacing the tent. “Soldiers can move very quickly. Sailors nearly as well. But it is at least a week’s sail even with the tradewinds and we will need to be supplied for it. Kree knows the state of our resources better than I.”

Rose found herself restless as well, her hooves far too used to walking to remain still. She walked to the front of the tent, peering out at the sudden buzz of activity as orders were passed. “But after that? We sail back to Eyrie, all right, but there’s still a war between me and home, and I’m still surrounded by gryphons. I trust you, of course, but you’re just one person.”

“I know it.” Gérard came to join her at the tent, looking out at the milling gryphons, already swarming over the anchored ship. “Aida, at least, still trusts me. Respects me. So that may be some shield, at least. But I suspect that getting you back among ponies will be part of ending the war. You understand us, Rose, and do not think Aida will miss the value in that. I have thought for some time that you might have to act as our herald when it comes to surrender.”

“Your herald?” She looked at him, startled. It wasn’t as if she had any position among the gryphons

“How many gryphons know Equestrian? How many ponies know Alce? And,” he added wryly. “It would free a gryphon from the ignominity of bringing surrender terms.”

“You would be doing it if I didn’t.” It wasn’t really a question. By now she had enough of a feel for both Gérard and his position to know that much.

“I was first choice. But this mission came first, and succeed or fail, I was not expected to be at the front when a decision needed to be made.”

“Well, I’m glad you will be.”

He cocked his head at her and she gave him a somewhat sad smile. “I can’t imagine someone like Kree or Tarn actually...ending the war. But you...I think you would get along with Princess Celestia. I hope so, anyway.”

His reply was interrupted by the four that had vacated the tent earlier, returning with Gérard’s requested bedroll and abandoned bags as well as a travel desk and the papers from the command post, tied in a bundle with twine. She stood aside as they bustled through, setting the furnishings in place in a matter of moments.

“Thank you, Talon Alria,” Gérard said, addressing the gryphon that had nearly attacked Rose. “Return to your duties.”

“Sir.” She gave him a brusque salute and left on the wing, the wind of her passage ruffling the front of the tent. The other three, the rest of her half-wing, followed in haste. Gérard watched them go and clicked his beak.

“Tch. Shall we walk the camp?”

“All right.” She wasn’t exactly looking forward to strolling around among all those gryphons, but she could think of at least three reasons why she should. And her hooves still itched to move, as if they weren’t used to standing still. “Can I leave my saddlebag?” She didn’t dare to be more direct, given how good gryphon hearing was.

His eyes flickered in calculation or decision, and he nodded. “Certainly. I think we can rely upon that remaining private.” He was clearly thinking about gryphon hearing too, and his words were either challenge or warning. Or possibly just reminder.

She hesitated a moment before laying the saddlebag and harness on the desk. It was an admission that the long trek was over and that she was, if not home, at least finished with the hardscrabble survival that had marked so many days and nights.

“Rose?” Gérard’s voice was soft, concerned, and she turned to join him at the tent entrance, leaving the saddlebag behind.

“Just thinking,” she said. “It’s odd to leave it behind. I’ve spent more time with that on than off, this past month.”

“I do understand. This is not where you belong, Rose. Perhaps we will get you home soon enough.

It wasn’t where Gérard belonged either. It wasn’t that he was out of place, for he certainly was in command, but that he was more guarded, more careful among his own kind than he had been in the wilderness. But conscious of the potential audience, she refrained from saying so directly.

“And you too. Where is your home, anyway?” She followed him out of the tent, falling into step beside him to stroll through the camp. It was mostly grass, and unlike pony camps the grass was still untrampled. In fact aside from Gérard and herself, she rarely saw any gryphon on the ground for any longer than it took to enter or leave one of the tents.

“Wherever Aida sends me.”

Rose eyed him skeptically and he chuckled softly. “Tch. I have had no time these past years, and have had too much risked too often.”

“You’ve got to be nearly done, though. After this war ends...”

“It is still too early to say.” He stopped by something that wasn’t a tent, but rather rough log walls with canvas stretched over the roof. Gryphons were hauling out crates and barrels and flying them to the Windrunner in a long stream of supplies. Gérard watched for a moment before addressing a blue gryphon overseeing the extraction, who was old enough for grey to start appearing in his fur. “Do we have enough to last the trip back?”

“Barely, sir. Kree made sure our supplies were kept topped off but I’d still be more comfortable with one last hunting pass.” He sounded tired and harried rather than annoyed, but he didn’t salute and he didn’t look at either of them.

“And foraging?” Rose wondered if Gérard had this particular encounter in mind, or if it was just a happy coincidence. “I’m only one pony so it doesn’t need to be much, but ponies can’t survive on meat.”

The gryphon turned his head to give her a flat, disbelieving look. “There is bread,” he said. “And rice. But fresh fruit - or even dried fruit - is in short supply and rationed.”

“And you will have to eat some meat,” Gérard murmured softly. “Sharing meat and salt is part of gryphon hospitality. No guest would refuse.”

Rose closed her eyes briefly. She had to focus on one issue at a time. “Bread and rice is fine,” she said. “But there should be clover and silverweed nearby, while you’re out hunting.” Those plants, at least, had Alce words.

“I will see that my hunters gather some.” Oddly, he seemed more relieved than annoyed, though perhaps it was because clover and silverweed didn’t cut into the gryphon food supply.

“Thank you.” She smiled at him, though it was possible he didn’t even recognise what that meant. Beaks just didn’t make that sort of expression.

He replied with a curt nod and switched his regard to Gérard. “Anything else, sir?”

“You know what you’re about, Master Telnion. Do what you think is necessary.”

“Yes, sir.” Telnion saluted, and they moved on.

Gérard said something before she could. “I am sorry. I should have mentioned it earlier. I did think of it, but other things drove it from my mind.”

“Kree?”

“Kree, and keeping you safe.” His tail flicked from side to side. “But -”

“Gérard,” she interrupted him. “You don’t have to apologize. I’m walking through a gryphon camp and I’m not afraid I’m going to be killed at any moment. You made that possible. Yes, the idea of eating meat makes me queasy but it’s not like it’s pony and it won’t really hurt me.”

It bothered her considerably more than she was admitting, but there was nothing Gérard could do about it other than feel bad. Yet it was considerably less disturbing than it would have been a month ago. Travelling with Gérard had made carnivory far less alien, and that left her with more mixed feelings than the idea of dinner itself.

“Well,” Gérard said after a moment. “To prevent any more surprises. The senior members eat together. Kree and Ganon will be there, Talons Alria and Kest, Captain Sekal and Master Talnion. And you and I.”

“At least I’ve already met most of them.” Though a dinner with Kree and Alria promised to be dismal. The others were at least indifferent to her, but those two were willing to kill. On the other hand, Gérard and Ganon between them would probably suppress any insults or sniping.

They resumed their stroll through the camp, and everywhere there were gryphons packing and bringing things to the Windrunner. He rarely commented on any of the work, just giving most of the gryphons a salute and a nod. Rose herself attracted a variety of looks, from the skeptical to the hateful to the hungry, as well as the occasional whispered comment. To their credit, the comments were restricted to the incredulous or disapproving rather than outright insulting.

Still, she was feeling drained again by the time they returned to the tent. And there was still at least a week of sail to go with those very same gryphons. Hopefully she could hide in the cabin. “It seemed like everything was going well. Everyone was busy, at least.”

“Yes. I think they are ready to leave.” He picked through the bundle of vellum on the desk. “Even with Kree’s aspirations there was little for them to do here.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready,” she admitted. “I do want to see Eyrie but...maybe under better circumstances.” She wanted to see Eyrie the same way Gérard did, why he loved it so, but that meant his company without the presence of gryphons like Kree. And she didn’t see how that would happen.

“Yes.” Gérard rubbed at his beak. “There are times when I resent the war more for the personal inconvenience than the great tragedy.”

“Which one is this?” She answered his raised eyebrow with a smile and he considered a moment.

“Both.”

It seemed gryphons kept the same hours as ponies, for dinner arrived just when she was expecting it. Ganon appeared at the entrance of the tent, and his strange, chilly whisper made her look up from her maps. “It is time to eat.”

Gérard put aside the last dregs of paperwork and stood, Rose following suit. She was half expecting another ride up to one of the raised platforms, but it was just a canvas pavilion not far from the tent. And it wasn’t the only one. There were perhaps a dozen more spread throughout the camp, and all of them bristling with gryphons. There was, as expected, the smell of cooking meat in the air but after her time with Gérard she was inured to it.

They were the last ones to the table at that particular pavilion, and Rose’s seat was between Gérard and Ganon. Despite how consistently disturbing Ganon’s voice and dead eyes were, she preferred him over the other possible neighbors. But oddly, they all seemed in a far better mood gathered around the table, with a full tankard at each place, even hers.

“So you were out there for a month, Gérard.” Sekal said. “Surely you have some good stories.”

“Fewer than you would think,” he replied dryly, lifting the tankard and taking a long drink from the spout-capped rim. “Unless you consider walking exciting.”

“Well, how’d you pick up her?” Sekal waved his own drink in Rose’s direction.

“She wandered onto the aftermath of Kree’s bad idea,” Gérard said without any rancor. Across the table, Kree’s ears flicked but he didn’t protest. “And I was there. It is a good thing, too, for she is a navigator, and this land is all but trackless. It has even tried to kill us.”

“Surely it can’t be that bad,” scoffed the one gryphon she hadn’t met before, Kest.

“This is not Eyrie.” Gérard’s voice was mild. “Rose might be able to explain it better. They are pony lands, after all.”

She blinked. Though she really hadn’t intended to intrude on the gryphon’s conversation, she knew when to take a cue. “I don’t know what the Eyrie is like, but this isn’t just wilderness. There were peoples here, civilizations, I don’t know how many, before us. And the land itself has so much magic. Scarlet once told me that when the demon of discord broke the world, this part healed oddly.” Every eye was on her, sharp predator’s gazes that were difficult to meet. “Either way, yes, the land might try and kill you. Or help you. Or talk to you. There’s no telling.”

“That might explain that one storm,” Sekal said thoughtfully. “The wind was completely wrong.”

“I’m not sure how much credence I give this, but it would make some of what we have seen on the front make more sense. We had attributed it to pony magic, but…” Talnion clicked his beak.

“Some of it probably was. Some of it…” She shrugged. Princess Celestia had some very talented battlemages and illusionists on the front lines. Rose certainly had no idea what they were up to. Kree opened his beak to say something, but closed it again as the food arrived.

A gryphon landed with a small wheeled service cart, with plates and bowls crowded into the trays. He pushed it around the pavilion, giving each of them a steaming bowl of stew and a small plate with a single piece of raw meat. Except for Rose, whose bowl was not of stew, but of grilled wild mushrooms and onions. She stared, at least until the meat was put in front of her.

The food gryphon finished by putting a small pot of coarse grey sea salt in the middle of the table, and Gérard gave him a nod. “Thank you, Kirr. Kree, if you would?”

Kree shot Gérard a look, but stirred in his seat. “Attend,” he said, lifting his plate. “With this meat we must pay our respects to the hunters, whose time and risk puts food on our plates. And we must pay our respects to the prey, whose lives are given to feed us.” His words were measured, cadenced. Formal.

He lowered the plate and picked up the salt pot. “Three grains of salt,” he said. “One for honor, which reminds us there is more to everything we do than the needs or desires of any single gryphon. We fulfill our honor to Aquila, to the clan, and to ourselves.” He plucked a grain of salt from the pot and dropped it onto the meat with a practiced finesse. “One for duty, which guides us when the path is difficult or uncertain. Our duty to Aquila, to the clan, and to ourselves. And one for obligation, which sets out the paths we may take. Our obligations to Aquila, to the clan, and to ourselves.” He dropped the other two grains on the meat with each passage, and then snapped down the slice in one bite.

Kree passed the salt to his right, to Talnion, who repeated the transfer of the three grains. “Honor, duty, obligation.” He said, passing the salt on before downing his own piece. And so it went around the table, each repeating the gesture, until it got to her.

She hadn’t intended to use her magic if she could help it, given Gérard’s first reaction to it, but salt grains were far too fine for her hooves to handle. Perhaps an earth pony could have managed it, but she was used to having her horn for finesse. She levitated three grains from the pot, putting them on her slice of meat with proper words. Honor, duty, obligation. Then, before she could think too much about it, she picked up the slice and put it into her mouth.

And chewed.

The texture was certainly nothing special, but the taste wasn’t nearly as bad as she thought it would be. In fact it was quite bland, only reminding her vaguely of certain kinds of mushrooms she’d had, and of course thoroughly salty. She swallowed against a wave of nausea and pushed the salt to Gérard.

He gave her a flicker of a wink before following suit with the ceremony himself, the last one. That seemed to be all, for the gryphons reached for either their stew or their drink. Rose hastily grabbed her own tankard and took a few healthy swallows of the contents. Then wheezed, because the contents were fairly potent and fairly bad beer.

Talnion barked a laugh. “Hah! She did it! Pay up, Alria.”

She clicked her beak. “Fine. After dinner.”

Rose wheezed again and caught her breath. “Did you...bet on me?”

“Of course!” Talnion was pleased. “And I won. I know Gérard, after all.”

“Ah,” she said faintly, breathing slowly and evenly and trying to forget what she’d just swallowed. But she was pleased that someone at least had faith in Gérard, even if it was only to win a bet on her.

It seemed that the single slice, at least, was staying down, so she pulled her bowl of proper pony food closer. She was a bit befuddled by the pair of sticks that accompanied it, but the mushrooms and onions seemed perfectly fine. “I’m surprised,” she confided in Gérard. “I didn’t know any gryphons would cook pony meals.”

“Kirr strives quite hard. What is important to him is that you are a guest, so he does his utmost. That is all any of us can do.”

Find Your Way

Rose watched the coast recede as the Windrunner fulfilled its name and flew before the morning breeze. All the tents had been packed and stowed in the space of an hour, but the wooden structures remained to be claimed by the land, giving the abandoned outpost a forlorn air. The deck swayed disconcertingly under her hooves, not at all like the barges and ferries of inland Equestria.

She didn’t know how a ship would need so many gryphons to run it, but there seemed to be a place for all of them. Her place, on the other hoof, was still undecided, and she felt uncomfortable and impotent standing on the deck, doing nothing at all while Gérard argued quietly with the navigator. That particular worthy seemed to fit into every bad pirate story she’d ever heard, with an eyepatch and mangled ear and stump talon. They were all on the left side, and in the flesh they weren’t quaint affectations but rather the legacy of some horrific calamity.

“Rose?” Gérard beckoned her over with a tilt of his head, and she joined him outside the wheelhouse. “Would you be willing to aid Gahir with navigation on our way home?”

“Why, certainly.” She shot Gahir a look, wondering why he would need her help. And what it had taken for Gérard to convince him to accept it. “I’ve never been to Eyrie, but if you have good maps I should be able to keep a fairly accurate course.”

“The sea’s not like the land,” Gahir’s single eye was narrowed at her. “Don’t suppose you’ve sailed deep ocean before. No landmarks here but for the stars, and they’ve been shy the past few years.”

“No…” Rose was briefly taken aback. Gérard had accepted her faculties at navigation long ago, and a pony wouldn’t have taken such an accusatory tone given her cutie mark. But of course he didn’t know. “But I don’t really need the stars to navigate.”

“That good a guesser, then?”

Rose considered how to explain it to him. It was possible, given gryphon magic, that a navigator as old and grizzled as he was as good a pathfinder as Rose. At least, so long as he had a star to steer by, something that was in short supply since Nightmare Winter. It wasn’t likely that he’d accept magical insight by words alone. She’d have to demonstrate.

“The ship is headed three degrees north of east-northeast, at about fourteen miles per hour. Do gryphons use that for ships?”

“Knots,” Gahir grunted. “I don’t know what that means in knots though.”

“Well, we’re six and a half miles out now - do you have a map? Charts?”

Gahir gave Gérard another accusatory look and waved her into the wheelhouse. The helmsgryph gave them a glance before returning his regard to the open sea. Here there were charts, pinned on the wall and in bundled rolls racked underneath. She felt a sudden itch to pick them up, hoard them like some cartographic dragon, but she restrained herself to simply studying the ones on the wall.

There were only two of consequence. One was of the coast they’d just left, clearly filled in by the gryphons over the month they’d been there, and another of the original course from Eyrie to Equestria. If that chart was accurate, they’d swung far south, around the worst of the opposing winds, and then followed a current up before finding the coast. But with the prevailing winds at their backs, the return journey would be far shorter.

“Do you mind?” She asked, gesturing at the charts.

“There’s pins and charcoal in the basket,” he grumbled.

“Thank you,” she said, though she didn’t need them. Instead she lit her horn, adjusting the coastline’s details slightly and marking out their passage so far on both charts. All six miles of it, when they had hundreds to go. But it wasn’t another slog through the wilderness, and barring storms or other calamity it was not so long a journey at all.

Gahir made a startled noise, reaching out to brush his claws over the charts, then fixed her with a single narrowed eye. “Ponies,” he muttered. “Fine. If you can actually keep the east and west accurate, we might find Eyrie without having to sail in circles.”

“I should be able to.” At least she hoped. She’d never tried it on the open ocean, and even knowing where they were meant nothing for navigation without the winds and currents. She’d only studied sea navigation in passing, years ago, and was glad she wasn’t in charge here. But she was also grateful Gérard had offered her something to help with, to take the edge off the long hours of enforced idleness on the journey.

He nodded and then waved her off, satisfied. She backed out of the wheelhouse, nearly colliding with Gérard. His raised eyebrows asked a question and she nodded. “I have a job.”

“Excellent.” His beak clicked. “We have never sailed this course before and I would rather not be delayed.”

“Me either.” So far most gryphons on the ship had given her a wide berth, since either Gérard or Ganon were close by, but she could feel the tension. A week on board the ship was asking for trouble; more than that was guaranteeing it.

Even so, she was determined to enjoy some aspect of the trip. She had never really seen the ocean before, let alone been out on it, and she found she was quite taken by the experience. The sway of the ship itself was perhaps a bit disconcerting, but the fresh breeze and the tang of the salt air and sheer openness appealed to her. Gérard, of course, merely endured it with a grim resignation.

He joined her at the rail, looking over the rippling expanse of blue water. “You are never far from the sea in Eyrie,” he said. “And I have always liked the view. But I have never been comfortable on it. Most of the time I have been over it.”

She glanced down at his injured wing. Over was no longer a choice for him. “Do you think...” she said quietly. “Once everything is over. Would you be willing to let a pony medimage fix that?”

He sighed. “I do not see how it would be possible. I would like to fly again, it is true, but I cannot yet imagine a future where either pony or gryphon would allow it.”

“Someday,” she assured him, watching his profile as he in turn looked out over the water, his eyes focused on the horizon. The sharp breeze ruffled his white feathers and blue fur, and with his sharp gold eyes she could easily see the general and commander that had brought war to Eyrie so many years ago, and the nobility that had ended it. In fact he looked positively regal, with his talons on the rail, ears focused forward, like some exiled prince returning home.

The sea breeze freshened and he leaned into it, his ears flattening slightly. She could imagine him looking like that as he flew, circling Eyrie, and for a moment she fancied herself flying with him. On his back, of course, she wasn’t a pegasus. His head tilted, his beak moved, and she realized he was saying something. “-a cabin.”

“What? I...wasn’t paying attention.” But of course she had been, though not to his words. Her ears burned as she quickly wiped an embarrassingly silly grin from her muzzle. He lifted an eyebrow at her, but fortunately he didn’t press.

“It is not a good idea for you to sleep in the main holds with the rest of the gryphons, so we’ll be sharing a cabin.”

“Oh.” Her mind hiccuped over that for a moment, the idea colliding with her flight of fancy for a moment of embarrassed confusion. Then she nodded. “That’s fine.” She felt more than a little foalish to be mooning over him, especially since in a few short days they’d arrive in Eyrie and she’d likely not see him again.

But she didn’t want that. Oh, she would be happy enough to be away from gryphons like Kree and Tarn and Alria, but she liked being around Gérard. Whether or not he was right when he called her gryphon-shaped, she felt sharper and more alive when she was with him.

She really did like him. The realization didn’t startle her, or sweep her off her feet, but rather stole in quietly and settled in where it had been all along. It was a more bitter than sweet feeling, not at all the unfettered happiness it had been with Iron Bar. Because it came with the knowledge there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Not on board the ship, and not later, when she returned to her people and Gérard to his. She was helpless and trapped, and this time Gérard couldn’t come to the rescue.

He was still watching her, head canted slightly, his golden eyes curious, bright, intense. But also guarded, as they had been ever since they’d arrived at the camp. No, it wasn’t she who was helpless, it was him. He was the one trapped in honor and duty and obligation, and she was the one escaping. She almost opened her mouth to ask him to come with her, but was too conscious of their audience. “Well, let’s see the cabin then. I imagine it’s better than my little tent, at least.”

His eyes flashed with humor. “Do not be certain of that. Cabins on a ship this size are famously cramped. I begin to believe there is some competition on the part of the shipwrights, knowing as they do only we poor landbound fools use them.”

It was indeed small, more of a closet with a window than anything she’d consider a room, with a pair of hammocks stretched from wall to wall, one above the other, and a tiny chest and cramped desk. If it weren’t for the furniture it would have seemed more cell than lodgings. And yet with all that it was still larger than the tent she’d shared with Gérard for a month, and smelled of wood and pitch and the open sea rather than tired and battered pony and gryphon.

“It’s kind of charming, actually. At least compared to what we’ve had. I certainly can’t complain.” She eyed the hammocks doubtfully. “So long as I take the bottom hammock. The top might make mornings interesting for both of us.”

He laughed, a throaty rumble. “I have a great respect for hooves, but they are not meant for climbing. The bottom bunk is yours.”

She gave him a smile and flipped open the chest, sliding off her saddlebag and depositing it inside. The tent and bedroll were too large, and went underneath the hammock. “Take yours too?” She offered, keeping her horn lit.

“Thank you,” he said, and she unclasped his saddlebags. They were full of papers now, rather than food, though she couldn’t fathom what paperwork would be important this far from civilization. On the other hoof, Scarlet had spent quite a lot of time on her own paperwork while Rose was busy with the maps, so perhaps it was simply one of those universals. The mysterious box was still in her own saddlebags, and since Gérard hadn’t mentioned it she hadn’t either. But it still weighed against her mind, another worry to add to the pile. A pile that seemed to be growing rather than shrinking the closer she came to returning home.

But those problems faded at least a little on the deck of the ship, with a bright sun and cloudless sky and crisp breeze. Here it was almost possible to forget that those working the ship and all the dots flying overhead were gryphons that were probably just as happy to see her dead as alive. Almost.

Even when night fell and the few precious stars came out, and she bent over the charts with Gahir, there was still hostility from the evening crew. It wasn’t anything overt, but there were mutters and dark looks and, if one of them had to talk to Gérard, they ignored her. But she supposed it was the best she could hope for.

“Will anyone - anygryph - do anything? These are awfully close quarters and I can tell they don’t like me.” Closeted in their cabin, she felt safe asking Gérard that much as she tried to settle into the hammock.

“Anyone. And I do not think so. By now they all know you are a guest, and it would be base treason and dishonor to violate that trust.” His voice floated down from above, a touch hoarse and touched by fatigue. “And more pressing, they know Ganon would tear apart any who tried.”

It was not the best note to end the day on.

Things improved at a thankfully meat-free breakfast, when a faint popping noise came from the scab on her side. She paused mid-chew, a sudden surge of panic evaporating along with the remnants of the burn ointment, the scab dissolving into nothing like so many pricked soap bubbles. It left behind a swath of bare pink skin which, at least where she could see by craning her neck, while mottled and splotched was at least healed. “Huh.”

Gérard got up from his seat, circling around the tiny desk to inspect her. “It seems Mercy’s materials were of a quality.” He lightly brushed his talons against the exposed skin, and she shivered at the gentle touch. “And you can still feel. That is better than most burns.”

“Thanks to you.” She shivered again, this time at the memory of how she’d gotten the injury. “I still don’t know how you managed it.”

“I wanted to. Surely that is explanation enough.” His eyes glittered and she laughed.

“If only we all could perform every feat we wished to.” Her voice came out more wry than she really intended, and he tilted his head at her.

“I am certain you can.” It was a challenge, of course, some purely gryphonic edge to his voice. Rose wasn’t quite sure what it meant to him, but to her the tone seemed calculated to tease. She liked it.

“I’m not home yet.” She pointed a hoof at him. “And I’m flattered, but you’re more responsible for that right now than I am.”

“Perhaps, but I never said you had to perform those feats alone.” He clicked his beak at her, his ears perked forward. “And it is thanks to you that I am here.”

“Then it should be we and not me,” she pointed out. “I’m happy to share the credit.”

“How could I refuse?”

She was in much better spirits by the time they emerged out onto the deck, but what she saw there instantly dropped her stomach into her hooves. Tarn and Kree and Alria were in close conversation with Captain Sekal, along with several other gryphons she recognized as the ones most offended by her presence. She couldn’t make out words but she knew with absolute certainty it boded ill.

Beside her Gérard went rigid, his ears flat against his skull. Their arrival did not go unnoticed, as Kree’s head whipped around to focus on them. The red eyes were narrowed, calculating, assessing. Disconcerting as that was, it was still better than the smouldering hatred in Tarn’s expression once he followed Kree’s gaze. She glanced around for any of the other gryphons she could consider allies, Ganon or Talnion or even Gahir, but they weren’t in sight.

Alria advanced across the deck toward them, followed closely by Kree and Tarn. Gérard stood his ground, as did she. Though she would rather have been anywhere else, she braced herself to meet them head on. To shy away would have been to act far too much like prey.

It was Tarn who spoke first. “We can no longer stand by while you destroy our honor and that of this ship by having that on board.” He pointed an accusatory talon at Rose. “I know you haven’t honor yourself but I didn’t think you were so far gone as to parade prey around as a guest! I don’t know why you’re insulting everyone here by treating our sworn enemy like a treasured lover!” His words had started out measured enough, but by the end were thick with fury. And pain.

“Tarn.” Kree stepped in, putting a talon on the big gryphon’s shoulder. Tarn closed his beak, and Kree turned to address Gérard. “I still cede that you are the leader of this expedition, but you seem to have forgotten the obligations carried by that. The presence of that is an open wound, and we are failing our own duties so long as we indulge your delusion. You cannot require us to continue treating food as a person of honor.”

Rose was flushed. Her face burned, her ears burned. She wasn’t angry, or offended, just shocked and hollow and hot. But Gérard was cold, his face a mask and his eyes narrowed to icy slits, and when he spoke his voice was frozen and hard. “If you think-”

“You’re wrong.” She interrupted him with her hoof pressed against his chest, and his beak snapped shut in startlement. But he didn’t gainsay her, merely watching as she turned to face the other gryphons. She knew with absolute certainty nothing Gérard said would make a difference here. It wasn’t his authority they were questioning, but his judgement, and that was entirely bound up in what they thought of her.

“You say that I’m prey, that I’m not a person of honor. That I shouldn’t be treated like one. But how can you think that? I sat at your table, and took meat and salt with you. I understand what you mean when you say duty, honor, obligation. It’s what brought you here, away from the fighting and those you care about, and it’s why you’re going back now even though you didn’t get what you came for. And I’m helping you!”

She had their attention now, and not just the three confronting Gérard. Behind them the conversation had stopped, and all eyes were focused her way. “I’m here because of my duty and honor and obligation. Because I helped Gérard. I’m not a soldier, just a cartographer, but I am a pony and ponies do not simply leave people to die. And you!” She pointed her hoof at Kree. He blinked. “You killed my friends! And I have kept my peace here because I trust in your honor enough to address that, when the time comes.”

“But prey -”

“I am not prey. We are not prey.” She stepped on Alria’s protest ruthlessly. “Do you know what we call gryphons? Monsters. Butchers. But I know that’s not true now.” She waved a hoof vaguely, taking in the whole ship. “I know that you’re just completely different from us. And you have to realize the same thing. I know you hate ponies. That you have reason to. But we are people, and your own honor suffers so long as you refuse to admit that. Surely you have an obligation to deal with that just as I have an obligation, once I get home, to try and convince everyone you’re not really monsters.”

There was a resounding silence.

“Well?” Rose glared. Tarn glared back.

“You cannot be anything but prey. You run like prey. You fight like prey, with fear and cringing. And without honor!”

“We fight to survive.” She told him. “We’re not like you. It’s not something we do for fun, that’s part of our way of life. It’s a last resort.”

“Then why do you always fight to kill?” It wasn’t Kree or Alria or Tarn, but one of the sailors. Rose blinked, finding that her audience had not only grown, it had drawn closer. The gryphons had made a sort of rough semicircle around her and, more alarming, Gérard had gone missing. But she didn’t dare gawk. The only thing keeping them civil was her refusal to give ground. “If you only fight to survive why do you destroy everything? It makes no sense.”

“Because we don’t want to be hurt again.” Rose was no orator, but now she felt that same sense of conviction that came with plotting a course or reading a map. “We don’t fight to test ourselves or each other. We do it to survive, which means ending the threat, and ending it forever.”

“So you intend to wipe us out?” It was yet another one of the sailors, one she didn’t recognize even by sight. There wasn’t exactly fear in his voice but there was a note of something that made her heart sink.

“We don’t want to. We really don’t. If we understood you better, we wouldn’t have to. And that’s what I need to do when I get back. Help ponies understand you.”

“You think you understand us, do you?” Tarn snarled, speaking up again. His eyes blazed.

“Gérard has - “

“Gérard knows nothing!” Tarn snapped, and leapt at her.

Once again Ganon was there before she could react. There was a white blur and Tarn was pinned against the deck, gasping for breath.

“Tarn…” Gérard’s voice came from off to the side, tired and worn. “You know you cannot control yourself around ponies. Stop making trouble for yourself. Stay away from Rose so you do not do something you will regret.” His tone sharpened. “That is an order.” He arrived at Rose’s side, and nodded to Ganon, who let Tarn up. The big black gryphon coughed, glared, and launched himself into the air without another word.

Gérard locked eyes with Kree. “I trust you will ensure he follows that order. His wounds are deep. You cannot expect him to limp along unaided.”

“Aye.” Kree said, acknowledgement and agreement both, and spread his wings, following Tarn into the air. Gérard watched for a moment then moved his attention to Captain Sekal, though all he did was raise his eyebrows.

“Back to your posts!” Sekal roared, sending most the crowd scattering. “Questions don’t sail the ship!”

That left only Alria, who regarded them with narrowed eyes. “I’m surprised you left her alone.”

“Well,” Gérard said, his eyes sparkling. “She didn’t need my help, now did she?” His voice was rich with satisfaction.

She grunted. “I suppose not. Sir.”

“I hope you have learned something. Dismissed.”

Alria saluted and took to wing, and finally Gérard turned to Rose. “That was well done, indeed.”

“I’m not entirely sure what I did,” she admitted. “Except talk.” Now that it was passed, she felt drained, almost shaky, as the rush faded.

“I think that is all you needed to do. One asks and expects answers from a guest, not from prey.”

“I suppose so.” She rubbed at her throat. “But I can’t imagine I convinced everyone. Tarn…”

“You cannot expect to convince everyone. There will always be those like Tarn, for good reasons or for ill. But the honor and duty of the others will protect you, now.” He chuckled softly. “Though I have doubts you much need it.”

“Ganon’s already saved me twice,” she pointed out, and turned to meet the white gryphon’s dead eyes. “Thank you, by the way.”

“Certainly, ma’am,” he replied in his feathered whisper, betraying no emotion at all.

“Good work,” Gérard agreed. “Make the rounds, see to it that this incident gets relayed accurately. Perhaps that will mean you will need to intervene less in the future.”

“Yes, sir.” Ganon padded off, utterly silent.

Rose let out a slow breath and sank to her haunches on the deck. Gérard stepped closer and she glanced up at him. “Where did you go, anyway?”

“To get Ganon,” he rumbled. “I knew Tarn would break sooner or later, and you seemed to be doing fine otherwise.”

Even now she wasn’t as certain as he was. But over the course of the journey she’d learned to trust herself and her talent in more than just maps, and if ever she needed to find a way it was here among the gryphons. And with Gérard.

If there was a path she could take to both have Gérard and fulfill her duty to keep the war - and the peace - from getting worse, she would find it. She canted her head to study him again and he blinked at her. “Yes, Rose?”

“I’m just thinking,” she told him. “About the future.” For his sake, at least, she didn’t want to press him while he was aboard the ship and there was no real privacy. But once they’d landed she’d find the time.

Despite her success she kept to herself for the next few days, a thing made easier by the fact that she did have a cabin to retreat to for meals. She could hear the boisterous laughter of gryphons through the closed door, but she preferred a quiet dinner with Gérard anyway. Still, there was no longer the odd strained feeling that had followed her around the ship, even if the list of gryphons that would talk to her remained small. Acknowledging she was a person was a start, but she was still the enemy.

The icon representing the Windrunner crawled across the map, drawing ever nearer to Eyrie, but all Rose could see was the endless expanse of ocean and sky, with the occasional cloud. Between Gahir and herself she was confident enough it was accurate, but they had to rely on gryphon scouts to confirm it.

“I’ve spotted Eyrie!” One of the sailors thudded down onto the deck next to Gahir. “Eight points north. But there’s a big stormcloud off the coast, so be prepared for weather.”

“Very good, Rinnyl.” Then Gahir raised his voice. “Adjust our course eight points north!” There were other instructions, less comprehensible. Even after a week she still hadn’t quite deciphered seafaring jargon. It seemed to be yet another language entirely.

“Looks like we’re nearly home,” Gérard said. “Are you ready?”

“I don’t know about ready, but I am looking forward to seeing it.” She peered northeast, though it would be some time before the island showed itself over the horizon. “I imagine you are, too.”

“I’d probably be a-wing and headed there already,” he admitted. “I know I have only been gone a pair of months but both those months have been very, very long.”

They stood at the rail together, watching as a smudge appeared on the horizon, and then slowly resolved itself into steep green cliffs, rising up and up to even greener ridges and white-capped peaks. Even at this distance she could see the glittering blue of waterfalls plunging down into the ocean. From what she could see it was as beautiful as Gérard had promised, verdant and vertical.

She could also see the stormcloud the scout had mentioned, hunched against the western shore of the island, and something about it looked off to her. Not that she was a pegasus, but she’d been close enough to pegasus cloud-construction to know what it looked like, and the longer she stared at the stormcloud the more certain she was. And there was only one pegasus-made structure that large.

“What is that doing here?” She muttered to herself.

Gérard glanced at her, then suddenly wheeled around. “Kree!” He bellowed.

He appeared in just a few moments. “Yes?”

“Take Ganon, Tarn, and Veshas. Find Aida and report. Assume we are in hostile territory. Do not engage, do not get caught. Go.”

Kree eyed Rose suspiciously for a moment, but saluted. “Sir.” His wings flicked and he was gone.

“Alria!”

She took longer to arrive, and was more reluctant about it. “Yes, sir?”

“I’ve sent Kree and Ganon and our scouts ahead. Get the rest of the wings and give the Windrunner a flying escort. If you run into ponies, assume they are here in force. Do not engage before reporting to me.”

“Aye, sir.” Like Kree, she took off on the wing, to gather up her warriors.

Rose blinked at Gérard. “So you recognize it too?”

“Not at all. But you did, so ponies are here. What is it?”

“Celestia’s Command. Sky called it The Stormfront. I’ve been there once...it’s a giant cloud fortress. I have no idea why it’s here.”

“Because the war is here,” Gérard sighed. “Things may be more complicated than I expected.”

“But with me here, it’ll be easier to get them to listen,” she pointed out. “At the very least I’m sure I could get someone to believe you wanted to talk.”

“I hope so,” he agreed. “I will need you sooner rather than later.”

Innocent as it was, those words made her heart skip a beat.

“Captain!” He said, and the moment passed. Sekal paced over to them and Gérard gestured out at the cloud. “That’s pony work. I expect we’ll be sailing into a war zone. I have my wings screening us but there will be little they can do if the pegasi descend in force.”

“I understand.” Sekal clicked his beak. “We were away for too long.”

“It seems so. Rose, come with me. I would rather you be quite visible.”

She accompanied him to the middle of the desk, though his caution seemed a little overdone. Then again, she’d never been in an actual battle. The sky seemed clear, any of Gérard’s wing invisible or indistinguishable from gulls in the bright blue sky. The minutes wore on, tense and close as they drew nearer to Eyrie and Celestia’s Command. Rose strained to make out any pegasi that might be around it, but to no avail.

Without any warning a dense fog billowed up around them, thicker than any Rose had been in before. She could only barely make out Gérard’s form next to her. “‘Ware pegasi!” He bellowed. “Get below or out!”

His words were followed by several sharp cracks of thunder as the fog strobed bright and dark, and the entire ship shuddered stem to stern. There was a crackle of fire, and Rose shuddered.

“The ship is called to surrender!” Shouted a pony voice in badly rehearsed Alce.

“We’re taking water!” A gryphon yelled from below.

Gérard’s voice came, quiet and calm. “We have no choice, Captain.”

“Aye…” Sekal’s reply floated back from somewhere in the fog. “I suppose not.”

“We surrender.” Gérard called up.

A series of thumps came from around the deck and the fog rolled away, revealing at least a dozen pegasi and half that many unicorns, all armed and armored, standing on a shattered and lightning-scored deck. Behind them, a pair of sailors frantically threw water on spreading flames.

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” their captain said to her in Equestrian. “You’re safe now.”

It took her a moment to realize what he’d said, and another for her to fumble for a reply in the same language. “I was before. What...what are you doing here? When did the war come this far out?”

He stared at her. “What? The war is over. The gryphons surrendered three weeks ago.”

Gérard began to laugh, harsh and hoarse and black as night.

Home?

Celestia’s Command floated just above the waves off a cove set into the cliffs of Eyrie. Rose thought the gryphon village there was built of some strange wood until she saw the skull, large enough that it had been turned into a dwelling, with glass in the eye sockets and the front fangs carved into pillars. Only then did it resolve itself into the bones of some unfathomably large beast. Arawn’s cirein-cròin.

The skull was hemmed in by a magic wall now, as were the rest of the dwellings, a prisoner camp holding hundreds of angry gryphons. She felt far more exposed walking past them, escorted by a wary guard, than she had on the ship, even when confronting them directly. The equally angry ponies surrounding her felt more threatening, despite that they were on her side. But that was almost certainly because she’d insisted Gérard come with her.

He was at the other end of their train, approaching the Command from the beach to appease the grim-faced sentinels guarding the singular entrance. Though she’d been allowed to keep her singular saddlebag, he only had unicorn-made hobbles. He barely seemed to notice, still hollow-eyed from the revelation the pegasus had given him. “Break out now!” One of the gryphons shouted from the nearest prison house. “They treat prisoners without honor! We surrendered, and they treat us like prey!”

And that neatly captured what was bothering her. Though it made sense from a pony perspective, every aspect of the capture and the prison camp was an affront to gryphon sensibilities and turned it into a dangerous froth, surrender or no. “I know you’ve been treated badly,” she called back. “I’m going to try and fix that.”

The sound of fluent Alce coming from a pony’s lips silenced both ponies and gryphons. It was enough to drag Gérard, blinking, from his reverie. “Thank you, Rose.” His voice was still a touch hoarse, though it had lost the shocked, echoing quality of the few words he’d spoken since they’d left the boat. “This is three breaths from catastrophe. If Kree saw this, he would shatter those wards…”

“What are you talking about?” The pegasus captain asked suspiciously.

“This prison. It can’t stay like this.”

“Well we can’t just let them out,” he said, exasperated. “You know what kind of havoc they’d cause.”

“Maybe.” She considered trying to explain all the condensed reasoning behind convincing the gryphons to behave, at least from a pony perspective, but it was clear he had no more love of gryphons than Kree had of ponies. And she wasn’t sure she could convince these gryphons nearly as easily as the ones aboard the Windrunner.

One of the royal guards lit his horn, magic flashing over her in a practiced cloudwalking spell. Her hooves tingled. “Her Majesty wants to see her,” he told her escort.

“Aye, sir. This way, ma’am.” He gestured for her to follow him up the cloud-formed steps leading into the fortress.

“What about Gérard?” She balked, both at the idea of leaving him behind and at the idea that the Princess wanted to see her. What she knew about gryphons was important, yes, and she’d expected maybe a long talk with one of the Ministers or perhaps even one of Celestia’s advisors. But surely the princess herself had greater concerns.

“He stays in a holding cell until Her Majesty or Commander Swiftwing or someone decides where he goes.” His voice was flat and uncompromising.

“Go on, Rose,” Gérard said, a faint trace of humor returning to his voice. “I have been in far worse prisons than a cell made of clouds.”

“This way,” the pegasus insisted, and Rose followed with one last glance back at Gérard. The interior of Celestia’s Command was a swarm of soldiers, mostly unicorns and pegasi but here and there an armored earth pony bulled through on their own errands.

They went deeper, through massive doors woven from pegasus and unicorn magics, the cloudstuff yielding slightly underhoof. Each layer was quieter, more focused, more watchful and rarefied. By the time they reached the center it seemed stifling, the cool white walls close and oppressive.

Then the last door opened and Celestia stood there in all her radiant glory. “And my last little pony returns home,” she said, her voice soft and warm. “Welcome back, Compass Rose.”

“Your Highness,” Rose managed, blinking against the impression of having looked straight into the sun, though Celestia wasn’t actually glowing. The rest of the room came into focus and she realized it was not a throne room, but rather an office, and a relatively small one at that. It was dominated by a large desk, clearly Celestia’s, holding a model of Eyrie that was surrounded by piles of paperwork on all sides.

Nor was Celestia alone. The four other ponies there were ones she knew at least by reputation, even if she’d only seen the unicorn before. There was Commander Swiftwing, of course, and Chancellor Ivory she’d met before, if only in passing. The earth pony had to be Councillor Stone Hearth, and the stripe-spattered mare was Stripehoof, who didn’t really have a title but had been Celestia’s right hoof during the Nightmare Winter.

None of them looked happy.

“Who did that to you?” Swiftwing snapped, his voice hard enough to make her flinch.

“What?” It took her a moment to realize he was pointing at her scar. “Oh, that’s -”

“I’ll make sure whoever it was is held accountable.” His eyes flashed with righteous anger.

“No, no!” She protested. “It was a forest fire!”

He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously, clearly disbelieving. “A forest fire? On a gryphon boat?”

“Peace, Commander,” Celestia chided gently. “Give her time to sit at least.” She waved at a padded seat on the other side of the desk and Rose settled in gingerly. “We found your camp a month ago,” she continued, her voice heavy with sorrow. “But we did not know your fate.”

“I...don’t think I knew it myself.” She closed her eyes against a fresh stab of grief, the images of the slaughter returning after having been so long pushed aside by more immediate concerns. “It’s been a long trip. And a hard one. It’s strange to be back.” Celestia’s look grew more concerned and Rose reassured her with a smile. “I’m fine, it’s just...I don’t even know what day it is.”

“Truly?” Celestia raised her eyebrows, regarding Rose for a moment. “Then you do not know how particularly appropriate it is that you return on this day, the anniversary of your own birth. Freedom is, after all, a wonderful gift.”

“I-” Rose paused, feeling suddenly much older than a single year would suggest.

“Alas, there is little enough to celebrate aside from your return. In truth, it is the first good news we have had in weeks.”

“But the war is over, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Swiftwing grunted. “That hasn’t made the gryphons much more peaceful. And it’s been getting worse since we got here. I’d put them all in cages if some ponies would let me.” He glowered in Stripehoof’s direction.

“It’d only make things worse. And yes, I mean that,” Stripehoof said, her voice flat. “Even now it’s only a matter of time before somegryph breaks one of Ivory’s cells.”

“I saw the cells. They’re-”

“Not nearly good enough, I know.” Skywing grumbled. “I’m sorry you had to see that but everyone comes in the front door.”

Rose was taken aback. She had expected something more sympathetic from ponies, even from the Commander of the armies, but maybe she was being unfair. Skywing had been on the front lines for the whole war, and he had faced every single day what Rose had only needed to once. In that much he was not too far from Gérard.

“Regardless,” he continued. “No pony has survived in gryphon custody as long as you did. So naturally we want to know what exactly happened. Why did they let you live when they killed everypony else?”

She gave him a long look. There were more than a few things she wanted to say to him, or more properly lecture him on, but not in the middle of an official audience, in front of the princess. “They...didn’t, actually. I wasn’t at camp at the time, so I came back to find...that. And Gérard. But no other gryphons.”

“And Gérard kept you prisoner for over a month,” Swiftwing growled.

“Well, he couldn’t fly, and didn’t have maps or compass or anything. He needed me to get back to the gryphon camp. He -”

“Just needed to keep you alive to get home, that makes more sense.” Swiftwing nodded, self-satisfied. “Same with the ship? They were having you navigate?”

She found herself starting to glare at the Commander. He was no doubt expert on the battlefield, but here gryphons weren’t simply the enemy. “Yes, I helped, but it wasn’t just that at all.”

He waved a hoof dismissively. “I’m sure they were at least marginally polite, but it’s fairly clear how lucky you were. They may be brutes but they’re practical enough to spot a useful skill.”

“Gérard was more than polite!” She bristled. “He’s a wonderful person, and my friend.”

There was silence for a moment. “Oh, honey,” Ivory said. “He’s a gryphon. One of the ones who killed your friends, who started this whole war. He’s not your friend. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine!” She shifted her glare to Ivory. “Just because he’s a gryphon doesn’t mean he’s a bad person. And he didn’t kill my friends! He doesn’t want to kill anypony.”

The advisors shared a glance. Celestia raised her eyebrows the slightest fraction, but didn’t rebuke Rose for the outburst.

“It’s all right, Compass Rose,” Stone Hearth said soothingly. “You’re among friends now. You don’t need to worry about them anymore. You don’t have to pretend -”

“I am not pretending.” Rose found herself just as furious and just as focused as when she’d faced the gryphons. “You don’t know Gérard. You haven’t talked with him, spent time with him, shared meals with him. Don’t tell me what I know and what I don’t. I’m not mistaken or wrong or pretending.”

Swiftwing’s expression had become hard and set as she spoke and, and when he replied it wasn’t to her. “Princess, I think she’s been affected by her time with them. We should-”

“I have not,” she snapped. “You-”

“Quiet,” Celestia murmured.

Rose went silent. Even though Celestia hadn’t raised her voice, there was enough power in that request Rose couldn’t even think of disobeying. The Princess was regarding her with her sharp violet eyes, and off to the side, Stripehoof’s look was only slightly less piercing.

“Some privacy, everypony.”

There were no protests from her advisors and they filed out, leaving Rose alone with the Princess. She swallowed. It wasn’t fear, exactly, but the terrible feeling that she had disappointed Celestia somehow.

‘Well,” she said. “Tell me about this Gérard. Who is he, and why was he down in the Hayseed Swamp, so far from the rest of the war?”

“He is…” She considered everything she knew about him, and how to express that without hours of explanation. “He’s a soldier who is more loyal to gryphons and Eyrie than to any particular gryphon. And Aida trusts him. But I’m still not sure what he was doing. All I know is that he was supposed to go to the dragons with a box.”

“The dragons?” Celestia was startled. “I don’t see how the gryphons could rouse them from their home. What could possibly have been in that box?”

“I don’t know. Gérard never opened it.”

“And where is this box now?” Celestia’s eyes narrowed at her in surmise. “Was it captured when the ship was?”

“It’s...in my saddlebags,” Rose said with deep reluctance. She was betraying Gérard’s trust by telling Celestia about it, but it was her duty. And that was something he would certainly understand.

“Is it, now?” Princess Celestia smiled, and it was a satisfied smile that wasn’t quite aimed at Rose. “How did it end up there?”

“He asked me to hold onto it.” Celestia didn’t say anything, and while her expression didn’t change something about it made her hasten to explain. “Because he trusted me more than the other gryphons. He didn’t think they would follow his orders not to open it.”

“It must be quite important.” Celestia stood, circling around the desk to her. “We do need to know what’s inside. Even a few messages might be instrumental in securing a true peace.”

Rose nodded and lifted the box from her saddlebags. It was heavy as ever, the oilcloth rumpled and stained, but when she removed it the box was unmarked. And made of bone. A month ago that would have bothered her, but now neither that nor the leather strap that held it shut gave her much pause. She gripped it with her forehooves, horn glowing as she picked apart the tight leather knot and, at last, opened the lid.

Light spilled into the room.

It wasn’t a bright light, to illuminate cloud and fur, but rather a dark one that stained everything it touched with the colors of fierce and swift and alert. It seemed to move in slow motion, a sluggish wave pouring out to puddle in the eye and mind and heart. Her tongue went numb save for frissons of eager purpose, and time itself seemed to have stopped. There was no movement, no sound, no breath or thought or life.

Celestia’s hoof reached out and closed the box. “That is quite enough of that,” she said firmly.

Rose gasped for air, coughing and hacking and feeling as if it had pooled in her lungs, her hooves still tingling. “What...what was that?”

“It is a small fragment of the essence of all gryphons.” Celestia’s usual serene expression had turned to something more sour. “A tiny piece of Aquila.”

A cold wind blew.

It whipped through the room, smelling of snow and high peaks and wild forests and the sea air, all at the same time. This was no gentle zephyr, but something wild and savage, casually shredding the papers lifted up by its passage and then demolishing the roof with no more effort. Layer upon layer of dense cloud, labored over by pegasi and enchanted by unicorns until it could resist even dragon claws, dispersed like mere vapor as the wind tore it away, opening the room to the sky.

“It is a breath. A hope. A promise. Of these things are we all forged.”

Aquila stood before them. Rose had never seen him, or even heard him described, but she knew it had to be. His colors were ordinary, just white and dun, but he was bigger than Gérard, bigger than Tarn, bigger, even, than Celestia. And when he spoke it was not in Equestrian or Alce, but something older and deeper that went straight past her ears and into her mind, battering her with each numbing syllable.

“Lord Aquila,” Celestia said, her voice cool and calm. Disapproving.

“Celeste Dawnbringer,” Aquila returned in a low rumble and with a brief tilt of his head.

“I thought I would have seen you before now.”

“To what point and purpose?” He stretched lithely, catlike, fixing them each in turn with sharp golden eyes. Distantly, Rose wondered why none of the guards had burst in to see what had happened, but there was a weight to the air that made everything seem oddly detached.

“To discuss the war, of course.” Celestia’s eyes were narrowed, focused.

“What of it? I let my children make their own mistakes and grasp their own successes. I am their judge and arbiter, not their ruler and protector. I do not measure their lives with each turning of the glass.”

“But...you gave Gérard that box.” Compared to Celestia and Aquila, Rose’s voice sounded small and faint. But Aquila fixed on her with a sharpness and suddenness that was the clear progenitor of Gérard’s own habit.

“Yes,” he said, rolling the word. “He asked, and knew what he was asking. I obliged.” Oddly, he seemed to accord her more attention than Celestia. At the very least there was a subtly different edge to his voice.

Celestia’s eyebrows raised. “You let a single gryphon take something so precious and dangerous...because he asked?”

“There is only room for one claw on the fulcrum of history,” Aquila replied, unruffled. “It will never be mine. Why not someone wholly committed to the gryphon race?”

“Yet it is still a gamble,” Celestia pointed out. “And in the end, one that didn’t quite work.”

“I cannot be certain of that,” Aquila demurred. “I know him. He is alive, and so he has not given up.”

Rose found herself smiling at the note of pride in Aquila’s voice. She had only seen the edges of the despair that had once shattered Gérard entirely, but if he knew his own god regarded him highly it might do something to ease that wound.

Then his sharp eyes moved to her and seemed to pierce all the way through. “You know his scent, too. You have tasted of his soul, a meal taken with meat and salt.”

“If Compass Rose agrees, then I believe you that this Gérard is still hoping to do something.” Celestia shook her head slowly. “But the gryphons have lost. There is little he can do to change that.”

“He was never trying to win,” Rose told her, meeting those violet eyes as best she could. “He was trying to save the gryphons from being destroyed.”

Celestia’s gaze narrowed, in some distant ghost of the predator’s focus. Aquila caught it, and clicked his beak softly. “Tch.”

“So that’s why you’re here now.” Celestia turned back to Aquila, ruffling her wings. “To bargain for them.”

“I do not bargain. I judge.” His ears flicked, back and then forward again. “But I have someone here to bargain for me.” One claw pointed, slow and deliberately, at Rose.

“You may not be a protector, but I am,” Celestia said coldly. “You cannot simply claim my ponies for yourself.”

“Oh, I certainly would not try.” Aquila’s tail flicked lazily. “Though both your child and mine have wandered so far I do not think they will ever truly be ours again.”

“Princess,” Rose dared, and Celestia looked at her. It was not surprise in those eyes, but surmise. “I don’t know about bargain, but...I know how hard it is for gryphons and ponies to get along. Or even understand each other. I know Gérard, and I understand gryphons, at least a little. And Gérard knows me, and understands ponies, at least a little. I want to show that gryphons aren’t monsters, and ponies aren’t prey.”

“Ah.” Celestia’s eyes flashed, though with what emotion Rose couldn’t tell. “That is not a simple thing you ask, Compass Rose. It is not a single decision, to be made by me or by Lord Aquila or by anyone else. It is a responsibility for lives. Thousands, or millions, spread out over years. And it is risk. Even with the imprimatur of my approval, there are those who will shun you. Those who will hate you.”

“But it is her duty,” Aquila rumbled, pacing closer. “An obligation, to fulfill her honor.”

“It’s the right thing to do,” she corrected.

“That is what I said.” Rose couldn’t tell whether or not he was joking.

“It is a right thing to do.” Celestia tilted her head back, ever so slightly. “But I have been at a loss for any since the surrender. The gryphons have grown more restless, more fractious, more violent, not less. I will not allow them to be a threat to my children. I will not have any more Scarlet Shimmers or Mercy Whites or Sky Shadows or Golden Glimmers or Sharp Eyes. But I could see no way that did not end up creating monsters. But if there is another way...find me that path, Compass Rose.”

“So, you know your duty,” Aquila said, soft and low.

“Yes,” she said to both of them.

“Then there is a judgement close to talon.” Aquila’s head lifted as he looked upward to the sky. “I will tell Aida. She has been waiting as long as I for this decision.”

“It has been a long month,” Celestia agreed.

“Oh, no. This particular judgement has been waiting for eight years.” There was a peculiar, anticipatory tone to Aquila’s voice, as if he were looking forward to a particularly savory meal.

Then the wind blew, and he was gone.

The walls sighed, relaxing from the presence of Aquila, and other sounds returned. Shouts, metallic bangs. Stripehoof skidded into the room, ignoring the pegasi and unicorn guards that suddenly swarmed about them, and sniffed the air. “He was here.”

“Yes,” Celestia said, and silenced the hubbub by lifting her hoof. The motion swirled to a stop, focused on Celestia. She, in turn, looked to Rose. “Start,” she said. “As you mean to go on.”

“Well.” Rose looked up at the Princess. “First, I need Gérard.”

You Can Never Go Home Again

Gérard looked more haggard than before. Not that he’d been away long, or that the guards had been unkind, but being alone with his thoughts for too long had done him no favors. Heedless of the guards and the hobbles on his feet and wings, she wrapped her forelegs about him and pulled him into a tight hug. He made an effort to return the gesture, but stopped as the chains rattled and caught against her barrel, bringing him up short.

“Rose,” he murmured.

“Are you okay?” She returned, in the same tone of voice.

“I am now,” he sighed, his breath stirring her mane.

The only response she could think to give was a brief squeeze, her muzzle buried in the crook of his neck. Then she stepped back. “Princess Celestia wants to talk to you,” she said, ignoring the varying degrees of shock on the expressions of all those in the audience chamber. All but Stripehoof, who looked merely speculative, and Celestia herself, who watched with a faint, enigmatic smile. “And then I’ll need your help.”

His beak clicked, softly. “Of course. Where you lead, I follow.”

That made her smile as she turned to Celestia, dipping her head in a bow. “This is Gérard, Your Majesty,” she said, changing back to Equestrian.

Celestia regarded Gérard as he drew himself to attention, despite the chains. “Rose has spoken highly of you,” she said at last.

“And of you, Your Majesty,” Gérard replied in his accented Equestrian. “Certainly, I can think of no better authority.”

The corner of Celestia’s mouth twitched, her smile growing more genuine for an instant. “Ah. Now we both know what excellent people we are.” Then her smile faded. “Alas, that is not enough for the situation at hoof. Aida surrendered three weeks ago and yet at every turn there are demands, there are attacks. There is no agreement to be had. I do not intend to make you answer for that, but I would like an answer. Why would you surrender and then fail to live up to the agreement?”

Gérard cocked his head at Celestia, his ears flicking back and then forward. Finally he clicked his beak. “Tch. I do not have an answer for you. I don’t know what words, what actions, what intentions have passed between ponies and gryphons since then. But I have spent time with Rose, and I know that ponies and gryphons have very different ideas of what is right.” His voice sharpened. “I have seen that prison outside. That may be acceptable to ponies, but for gryphons it is enough to void any agreement.”

“And what am I supposed to do?” Celestia raised a single eyebrow at Gérard. “Just let them go?”

“Yes.”

“Absurd,” Swiftwing said. “They’d just attack us again! We know how gryphon prisoners are.”

“They surrendered,” Gérard said stiffly. “They should not be prisoners.”

“Listen to Gérard,” Rose put in. “You may not trust him, but listen to what he is saying. You can’t treat gryphons like ponies, enemies or not. They have their own ways of thinking and judging. Honor and duty and obligation are just as important to them as cutie marks are to us. And when we don’t follow those, what choice do they have but to hate us for it?”

“But we won,” Stone Hearth objected. “We shouldn’t have to handle them like upset foals.”

“We should handle them as they expect because we won. It’s our responsibility, not just because we’re in charge, but because that’s what the gryphons expect from the victor.” She almost switched back to Alce, rooted as it was in her understanding of gryphons. “Winning carries as much of a debt as losing, for them.”

“But not for us.” Stone Hearth remained skeptical.

“And are you volunteering to go tell the gryphons all the reasons they have to hate us are unfounded?” Stripehoof flicked her ears. “And all they need to do is understand and everything will be fine?”

“Certainly not,” he huffed.

“She is.” Stripehoof pointed at Rose. “There’s the understanding. And the volunteer. Shouldn’t we take advantage of that?”

“Yes, indeed.” Celestia spoke again, drawing all eyes to her. “That is why I am putting Compass Rose in charge of gryphon relations. The peace is in her hooves now.”

“Ah.” Gérard’s eyes glinted suddenly, ears focused forward. “An excellent choice, Your Majesty.”

“But…” Swiftwing sputtered. “How can we possibly trust her? How do we know the gryphons haven’t turned her traitor somehow?”

“You’ve trusted her in every planning session of the last three years.” A smile tugged at Celestia’s lips. “The master of every map we have came from her hooves. We’ve relied on her knowledge and talent to plot our courses before. I see no reason we shouldn’t do so again.”

His expression tightened, but in the end, even Swiftwing wasn’t willing to gainsay the princess. Celestia’s eyes tracked from him to Rose, questioning.

“We are going to release those prisoners. And before Aida arrives. But,” Rose continued, before either Swiftwing or Stone Hearth could object. “I know we can’t just let them go right off and expect things to work out. Gérard and I will talk to them first.”

“Do you think talking will do any good?” Ivory asked, doubtful.

“Do you think anything else will?” Rose frowned at her. “They’re just as reasonable as ponies, you know.”

Ivory’s frown remained, so Rose turned to the guards. “You can release Gérard now.”

“I’ll fetch Captain Silverhorn,” one said stiffly, disapproving but trying to hide it. “It’s his construct.”

Gérard clicked his beak. “Tch. No need.” He lifted his forelegs and, without any apparent effort, shattered the chain of pure magic that bound them together, the blue-green construct dissipating into the air. Then he systematically and, to Rose’s eye, with some degree of satisfaction, tore apart the hobbles on his hind legs and his wings, talons shearing through Silverhorn’s magic like paper.

“How did you do that?”

“You could have done that the whole time?”

Ivory and Swiftwing spoke nearly at once. Gérard ignored them both, and Rose didn’t bother to suppress a gleeful smile at the sight.

“Aida is coming here?” He changed back to Alce, so she did too, smile fading.

“Yes. They haven’t made much progress talking to her but...I think I can.” She was reluctant to mention Aquila’s role, as if it were too intimate a subject to broach.

“She will have Kree with her,” Gérard said, utterly assured of Kree’s ability to evade the pony presence to reach Aida. “Your people will want you to hold him responsible for what happened to your friends.”

“I know.” A faint stab of familiar pain made her chest ache, accompanied by something less definable as she realized Kree’s fate was her responsibility. Her choice. She had a sudden appreciation for what Gérard must have felt on that long-ago day, in that moment of crystal clarity. The entire future of the peace, even her future with Gérard, might not revolve around what she did with Kree, but they also might, and she knew she could only make one choice. “But I won’t. I trust you will hold him responsible for what he has done, by your accounting.”

“Yes,” Gérard agreed. “And in turn I trust you will handle my debt for it properly.”

“I will,” she promised, knowing that he wouldn’t be satisfied with simple forgiveness, no matter how much she wanted to grant it. “And...I think I’ll need you to start by supporting me when I go to open those cells. Not just as me, Compass Rose, but as the one now responsible for everything.”

“Ah. That is quite a task.” His eyes flashed with some purely gryphon emotion, ears canting sideways. “I am, of course, at your command.”

“With your permission, Your Highness?” Rose finally looked back to Celestia, finding the change from one language to another less disconcerting this time. It was something she would have to master if she wanted either side to understand the other.

“Of course, Compass Rose.” Celestia smiled again, granting them leave with a wave of her hoof. “Lieutenant Copper, pass the word. She has the authority.”

“Ma’am.” One of the guards saluted, drawing himself up and falling in next to Rose.

She bowed to Celestia, and Gérard nodded sharply, and they left the room side by side. After so long, it was habit, though finding her way through the layers of cloud that comprised Celestia’s Command was markedly different than the same exercise in the middle of wilderness. Copper trailed behind as chaperone, though the pair of them attracted no more than startled looks.

Then they stepped outside and the looks turned hostile. Still, nopony actually accosted them until they reached the tenuous outer border of the village. Only then did a wing of pegasi swoop down to join the unicorn guard posted there. “Sorry, ma’am, we can’t let you get any closer. Especially not with a loose gryphon.”

“Hello,” Rose peered at the insignia on his pectoral. “Captain. My name is Compass Rose. I’m in charge of gryphon relations now, by order of Princess Celestia.”

“Verified, sir,” Copper put in before the captain could marshal his incredulity. “Her Majesty sent me along to make sure you were properly informed.”

The pegasus captain visibly controlled himself. Rose had some degree of sympathy for him but, considering the makeshift prison behind him, only some. At length he gave Rose a curt nod. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

“I’m going to need you to take your troops and pull back to Celestia’s Command. I’m going to be releasing the prisoners here and, yes, I will make sure they don’t just attack.”

The poor pony ground his teeth, but had enough composure to at least remain polite. “Are you certain about that, ma’am? We can’t protect or advise you if we’re not here.”

“I’m certain. I’ll be able to talk to the gryphons better if it’s just me.”

He didn’t move for a minute, simply watching her, brow furrowed, as if waiting for her to change her mind. When she didn’t he turned and barked out a few stiff orders to his troops, sending them back to the Command. A few unicorns Rose hadn’t spotted among the buildings joined them, trotting off to the fortress. Soon enough it was just Rose and Gérard and a village full of watchful gryphons.

“Who speaks for you?” She stepped forward, looking at the narrowed eyes and sharp beaks pressed close against nearly transparent unicorn-made walls. If nothing else, there would be someone who was ultimately responsible.

“Me.” The gryphon that spoke was ancient by anyone’s standards, battered and scarred, his white fur turning silver but unbowed under his weight of years. “I am Einion, head of clan Halfpaw.” His Alce was considerably rougher than Gérard’s, rougher even than the sailors on board the Windrunner.

“I am Compass Rose, and I am now responsible for all that passes between gryphons and ponies. Including this camp. And I will be releasing you shortly.”

Einion’s ears flicked forward, muddy brown eyes fixing on her. “So have you finally decided to stop treating us like prey?”

“No,” she said sharply. “Ponies have never treated you like prey. They don’t think in terms of predators and prey, but they have treated you like you’re dangerous. I know it doesn’t excuse anything,” she continued, more quietly. “But the mistreatment was not deliberate insult. It was just what ponies thought was a reasonable way to treat someone who would try to kill them without provocation.”

“Without provocation?” His eyes flashed and his ears flattened. “We have been provoked.”

“I know. You know. But they don’t see it that way, any more than you see why the notion of testing strength is deeply disturbing to us.”

His tail flicked restlessly, back and forth as he studied her. “What point are you trying to make?”

“The relations between gryphon and pony can’t be resolved by either the pony approach or the gryphon approach.” She waved her hoof, encompassing the prisons. “The pony method threatens gryphons in the only way that matters to you - your honor. And the gryphon method threatens ponies in a way that matters to them. Their safety.”

“And?” His beak snapped contemptuously.

“And I understand both perspectives. That’s why this is my responsibility now. I will make sure that debts are counted and paid where they may be, and without too much damage to life, limb, or honor.”

Einion’s eyes narrowed, ears twitching as he considered her.

“Trust her, Arawnson.” Gérard said, voice soft and low. “Under the open sky, I pledge that she is worthy of it.”

“Trust, trust.” He turned his gaze to Gérard. “I don’t think I have any left for them anymore. Not after all this.”

“And yet you have precious few choices. I do not know what she has in mind but she has never led me astray. She has also never promised an easy path.”

“I don’t expect what I ask to be easy for you,” Rose added. “I know it stretches the bounds of duty and obligation. But we can’t get from here to the end in one bound. Aida is coming to talk, and I intend to use the freeing of this village as an opening. But of course, only if it is an opening.”

Einion’s ears flicked forward and he canted his head slightly, waiting for her to go on.

“Whatever debts have been incurred here will be paid, by me or by whom I represent, in property or word. But I can’t accomplish that if you simply attack again once you are free.”

“Some debts cannot be satisfied with apologies or reparations,” Einion growled.

“If you wish to fight, you will fight me,” Gérard said.

“You would side with ponies against your own people?” He narrowed his eyes at Gérard, ears flattening again.

“As you say, some debts cannot be satisfied with apologies or reparations. And some duties ask of us things we would rather not do.” Gérard’s voice hardened. “I am not siding against my people. I am trying to save us all. They have won, and they are not gryphons, and I am still learning what that means.”

“As are we.” Rose picked up the thread from Gérard. “It’s a delicate and difficult thing. We may not have the same idea of what the responsibilities are, but there are very few ponies who think we have no responsibilities. You have tested our strength in battle and it was sufficient, but now you’re testing other sorts of strength and we’re failing utterly. Until now. But tests go both ways.”

Einion grunted, tail flicking. His eyes bored into hers, but she refused to look away, and finally he spoke. “So you’ll release us if we keep our peace for now?”

“No. I will release you no matter what,” she said firmly. “I am merely telling you why you should keep your peace.”

His beak clicked in reply, his eyes somewhere else.

“Grandfather,” a gryphoness addressed him, her voice lilting through the hushed air. “She did send away the guards.”

“True enough.” Einion sighed, rubbing at his beak, and turned to regard the gryphons gathered behind him. “Attend, all!” His voice boomed through the village, unexpectedly loud, forcing Rose to flatten her ears against the noise. “Very soon, these walls will be gone. But our obligation is to defer any slight against our honor for the sake of the rest of the clans. Arawn in his time was willing to sacrifice his paw, his eye, and in the end, his life for his clan. Surely we can bear to sacrifice time.”

That was good enough for Rose. “Gérard?” She asked, not wanting to call all the guards back. Her instincts told her that would be far too demeaning. They needed to be freed now, and by Gérard.

He pressed his talons against the magical shield, eyes far away. “These are more difficult. I could not - but perhaps…”

Rose stared. She had never seen Gérard so oddly undecided, so he had to have something unusual on his mind indeed.

Gérard looked at Einion through the barrier. “Arawn once freed thrice a hundred gryphons from inside a cirein-cròin.”

“So he did.” Einion gazed back, one ear forward and one ear back.

Gérard stepped back from the magical wall, looking skyward for a moment before taking a deep breath and letting it out, dropping his eyes to hold Einion’s. “Seven whales, a cirein-cròin’s fill. It was a mighty foe.”

“But mighty too was Arawn,” Einion replied, in the cadence not of speech, but of story. The faint, background noise of murmuring gryphons ceased, leaving a deeper silence.

“It swallowed three ships, captain and crew.”

“But daunted not was Arawn.” It wasn’t just Einion who replied that time, but most of the group with him, their words weighed and measured.

Gérard stepped forward, dragging his talons against the shield. It hissed and sparked. “He tore at it with his claws, but its hide was stone and iron.”

“But relentless was Arawn.” The voices came from all the dwellings now. “His talons flashed like blades as he fought the beast, meeting its razored teeth.”

He obeyed their direction, leaping at the shield and then back, dancing in place as he struck against the magic. Rose felt a prickle along her spine, though she couldn’t tell if it was from magic or the force of a hundred voices saying the same words.

“They crashed and they clashed until both bled from a hundred wounds,” said Gérard, and Rose winced as indeed blood spattered in fine droplets from his wing, something there opened again by the movements. “His wings beat the air as he hauled it from the ocean blue, or the water as it dragged him below. They roared and churned the waves to froth, until its jaws closed on him.” He held up right forepaw, curling two talons under to leave just the one.

The bones of the cirein-cròin seemed to creak as it was invoked, some ancient spark of animus stirring from the retelling. The voices of gryphons echoed back at Gérard. “Arawn Halfpaw would not be cowed, and met strength with strength. He staggered it with mighty blows.”

Gérard leapt again, but it didn’t look like him. The movements were of someone younger, more lithe. More dangerous. His talon boomed against the magical shield, cracks fracturing the smooth surface. “The beast opened its jaws wide,” he intoned.

“And with his single talon and half a paw, he tore the beast asunder.” The gryphons instructed.

His talon swept down, cutting every single shield in every single house at once. There was a sound like a thousand panes of glass shattering, and gryphons poured into the air.

Rose blinked away the afterimage of impossibility as Gérard slumped to the ground, dazed. She hastened forward to help him to his feet, and he braced himself to meet Einion, the older gryphon padding forward with the peculiar grace of the very old.

“Well enough done,” he said grudgingly and, apparently feeling that was sufficient praise, turned his attention to Rose. “You don’t act like the others.” His tone was almost accusing.

“I have more experience with gryphons,” she told him. “I know you’re not monsters.” Though even she was surprised how little the cloud of gryphons dispersing across the sky bothered her. But only Einion seemed interested in even acknowledging her existence.

“Tch.” He clicked his beak. “It takes more than that to act properly.”

“Gérard has taught me a lot.” She cast a smile in his direction, and he canted his head, eyes glinting.

“Are you that Gérard?” Einion narrowed his eyes at him, a predator’s focus.

“Yes.”

“Then you have either the best teacher,” he told Rose. “Or the worst. Now go, deal with Aida.” He turned away, apparently dismissing them as he headed back into his home. Perhaps half the gryphons that had been behind the magical walls had gone, but the rest had stayed, though most were outside and a-wing, flitting among the bones. After all, it was their village.

“He has not changed at all,” Gérard said.

“You know him?”

“I met him once, when I was still a fledgeling. He led clan Halfpaw then, too. He is twice as old as I am, and nobody’s fool.”

“I could tell.” He had been remarkably placid, in fact, considering the circumstances, if still sharp. And not just placid about her being a pony. He had taken Gérard’s performance in stride without question, something Rose was still trying to digest. Though the more she thought about gryphons and their magic, the less startling it was. “I hasn’t expected such a close look at gryphon legends, though.”

His eyes glinted. “Rarely are they so dramatic. I trust we will not find need for more.”

“I hope not.” She glanced skyward, though with all the gryphons she couldn’t have spotted Aida and her entourage. “I also hope that was enough. Now that it’s done, it seems so small next to salvaging the damage of an entire war.”

“It is enough for a beginning. History takes time.” He ambled along beside her, his frame relaxed, but his eyes and ears moving constantly, head moving in little jerks as he tracked the flying gryphons. Looking for threats.

“Is there anything you can tell me about Aida?” Rose asked quietly. “I haven’t a single idea of how to get her to trust me, other than ask you.”

“Only that she may be her own legend, in time.” Gérard’s voice turned thoughtful. “She is as sharp as Aquila’s own talons, but she is fiercer than I. Prouder. Aida would certainly not sacrifice anything for the sake of her own ego, but her honor is the honor of the clans. Of all gryphons.”

Rose nodded, considering. She wasn’t so much worried about any actual details that might be negotiated than gaining Aida’s confidence. And trust. The pegasus guard she had displaced watched with stony-faced disapproval as she tramped back through the front of Celestia’s Command, perched on the ridge of stormcloud to defend against any attack from the freed gryphons.

They passed back inside, finding that in their short absence the cloud had been reshaped, the narrow corridors just inside the front door turned into the vestibule to a broad audience hall. It stretched all the way up the domed ceiling and back to an imposing throne, where Celestia was in conference with her advisors. And it was all wrong.

Rose hastened along the long cloud chamber, Gérard padding at her heels, and stopped just outside the circle formed by Celestia’s advisors. She didn’t have to wait, for Celestia immediately broke off her discussion with Stone Hearth to raise her eyebrows at Rose. “Yes?”

“This isn’t going to work,” she said, waving her hoof at the huge audience chamber. “They’re not subjects or supplicants. The office would have been better, or…” A thought struck her. “A dining room. I’m sure we can get some fish from the Halfpaw village. If we have time.”

“That’s not very official,” Ivory groused. “And we just finished setting this up!”

The corners of Celestia’s lips twitched. “Well,” she said. “It is winding on toward suppertime. If you think it is a better venue then of course I will be happy to share a meal with them. Though we don’t have any gryphon cooks.”

“That won’t be an issue, I’m sure.” She refrained from mentioning the gryphon cook had managed with pony food. It wasn’t quite the same. “The point is to treat them as guests. That is promise by both sides to be civilized. The audience chamber promises...other things.”

“Then it shall be done. Stone Hearth, would you arrange it?”

He nodded, of course, frowning at Rose before turning away to attend to the task. Celestia dismissed the others after a moment and smiled at Rose and Gérard both. “My guards told me that all the gryphons we were holding simply left without incident. And that you broke the magical barriers that twelve expert unicorns put together.” She lifted an eyebrow at them.

“Very little can withstand the force of history,” Gérard replied quietly. “And that is from history that gryphons draw their strength.”

“And they’re very reasonable if you know how to talk to them. Though I did pledge to pay any debts incurred by imprisoning them like that...I hope it will mostly be an apology, but even if it isn’t, it’s my pledge, not Equestria’s.”

“Of course it’s Equestria’s.” Celestia said, not quite chiding. “I did put you in charge of it, after all.” Rose ducked her head in embarrassed acknowledgement, and Celestia continued. “Freeing those gryphons without a bloodbath is worth whatever bits it might take to soothe ruffled feathers.” Gérard clicked his beak, darkly amused, and Celestia winked at him.

“But,” she continued, growing more serious. “The ultimate end of any negotiations we have is to remove any chance for another war. I would prefer that, in a few generations when tempers have cooled, we be friends. But harmony does not seem to be their first nature.”

“No,” Rose agreed. “Conflict is. They measure themselves and others by how they strive.”

“That’s not much to build on, is it?”

“It’s enough,” she said, with a sideways glance at Gérard. “But both of us have to learn the other side really isn’t so bad. Just very different.”

“Not an easy lesson,” Celestia agreed, watching as cloudstuff was pulled down to cut off part of the audience hall, reshaping it into a large dining room. Even before the walls were finished other pegasi were shaping a broad table and a dozen chairs from the floor. “I imagine they will be here soon enough,” she added, heading for the room under construction. “If we are to be hosts, we should be there to greet them.”

Rose trailed along behind Celestia, and Gérard shadowed her in turn, matching her step for step. The princess walked calmly through an unclosed gap in the wall, circled around the table, giving the workers nods as she breezed over to the entrance door, now facing directly into the vestibule. For a moment Rose thought Celestia was being overly hasty, but a cold gust blew the door open the moment she came to a halt at Celestia’s side.

Gérard rocked back as if he’d been dealt a blow, his feathers rippling under the wind of Aquila’s presence. “My lord!” He managed, sounding half-strangled. She’d never seen him so shaken, even during the hardest times, but Aquila merely nodded gravely in response. Kree glared at no one and nothing in particular, and Ganon was unreadable as ever.

Rose, for her part, focused on Aida. She was the same colors as Aquila, all tawny brown and snow white, but she wore a battered set of bronze armor, old and more than a little ugly. “Celestia,” she said, fire burning in molten amber eyes, and Rose knew immediately from the cadence of her Equestrian that she’d learned it from Gérard.

“Aida,” Celestia returned in the same even tone. Then her composure softened. “In light of our past difficulties, I’ve put Compass Rose in charge of our negotiations. She has my full faith and I think she will be more suited to the task than I.”

“Welcome to the Stormfront,” Rose said in Alce, deeming the other name perhaps too impolitic. “Though we do not have all that much in the way of gryphon food, we would still be honored to have you as guests at our table.”

Aida flicked an ear, giving Rose a long look. Rose looked back, despite the intensity of the gaze, and after a moment Aida shifted her attention to Gérard. He didn’t seem to notice, still transfixed by Aquila’s presence, and Aida nodded sharply. “We accept your hospitality,” she said, her posture relaxing ever so slightly, and Rose stepped aside, ushering the four of them into the dining room. Kree nearly touched her as he brushed past, and Ganon padded after. But then Aquila followed, and the ceiling parted as he moved, so the room was always open to the sky.

She wondered if he was as difficult on roofs of wood or bone as he was on clouds, but he was a judge, and by Gérard’s comments held court under under the open sky. He probably didn’t go indoors often, or ever. For him to be anywhere but his court had to be profoundly bizarre, to judge by Gérard’s reaction. He bestirred himself to follow the other gryphons of his own accord, so she followed Celestia in without saying anything, no matter that she wanted to.

Aquila deliberately sat apart from the other three gryphons, and Celestia went to join him, leaving Rose and Gérard to face Aida and Kree. She didn’t really count Ganon because she couldn’t imagine him arguing in that whisper of his. Or being responsible for decisions, given his nature.

“Einion sent word you dispensed with the prison camp.” Aida said.

“And past time, too,” Kree muttered.

“Yes,” Rose said. She considered all the decisions and understandings it had taken to accomplish that, and decided against trying to explain any of it as an opening conversational gambit. “It wasn’t necessary anymore.”

“And you,” she said, focusing those eyes on Gérard. “Seem to have placed yourself against us.”

“Never,” he replied.

“No,” Kree growled. “I have seen the way you look at her. You have completely lost yourself. Do you have any brains left? Have you forgotten your duties, your obligation to us? Have you forgotten Nerys?”

“Never,” Gérard repeated, cold and hard as Eyrie’s peaks. “I sacrificed everything I had, everything I was for her sake. And now I do it again, for the sake of Eyrie.”

“You sacrifice others for your own twisted pride.” Kree snapped, beak clicking. “How many of us are hurt when you give up and pretend it is something noble?”

“Too many.” Gérard met Kree’s blood-red glare with calm deliberation. “But I have never given up.”

“Then what have you done?” Kree gestured around wildly. “You sit there with the enemy when you should tear them all apart!”

“Kree.” Aida’s tone flattened Kree’s ears. “That is enough. We may question his loyalty without resorting to insult.” She regraded Gérard. “And I must question it,” she said, her voice thick with pain. “I can hear your Alce in her words, so I have to wonder what has happened here. I trust you, but not enough to blindly accept your place opposing me.”

“I do not oppose you,” Gérard said, equally agonized. “I am simply trying to help you understand.”

“You have had valuable insight before, Gérard. But ending this war became an obsession for you, and I know how you are with obsessions.” Aida was grim, and Rose thought of the black, bleak edges she’d glimpsed from Gérard. She couldn’t blame the gryphon for being skeptical. “How can I judge if you are truly acting for gryphons?”

Aquila stirred. He didn’t so much move as direct his attention, a cold wind whipping over the table. “I will judge.”

Everyone looked at him, Celestia included. There was something cold and hard and uncompromising behind his eyes as he regarded the three gryphons, but his voice lost none of its richness. “Eight years ago, Gérard made a decision. It was either an utter desertion of honor, or it was not. It was a decision made for the sake of ego and memory, or to build a future.”

Gérard’s beak opened, then closed again without a word. He looked haunted, and Rose ached to soothe him, but she had no idea how to even start. This wasn’t a blow that could be fended off, but the results of history and choices made long past.

“For eight years I have been waiting for the results of that decision to bear fruit. Most decided Gérard was a coward and acted accordingly.” That, to Kree, without either praise or censure. “And you decided he was not, and acted so.” Aquila’s eyes swept to Aida. She inclined her head.

“And you tore yourself in two, to hold them both at once.” Aquila pinned Gérard with a look. “Now history repeats. You stand at a decision that will shape the future of all gryphons, and it is not one that can be carried through by someone broken into parts. So the judgement will be made here, now.”

Gérard bowed his head, and Rose reached out to lay a hoof against his shoulder. The atmosphere in the room was stretched and breathless, full of terrified anticipation. This wasn’t just an opinion Aquila was offering, but a weighing of Gérard’s soul. And he might very well be found wanting.

“Honor and duty and obligation are the trinity upon which we balance, and if we lose one of them we fall. My eyes have been on you and Kree for a long time now, to see if you truly had fallen.” Aquila pointed a talon at Ganon, whose flat, dead gaze didn’t flicker.

It seemed to Rose she was the only one who was surprised. Not that she expressed it with anything more than a widening of her eyes, unwilling to break into Aquila’s words, but nobody else so much as twitched. Aquila caught it, however, and a very Gérard-like glint danced for a moment in the place of the implacable weight of his gaze. “Oh yes,” he told her. “Only such a disemboweled and hollowed-out soul could give me an untinted view of the world. Of gryphons and of ponies.”

She had to wonder what those lifeless eyes had seen when they looked at her.

“Gérard, you have lost many, many times over the course of years, but you have never given up. You have never fallen. You found a form of honor that is rare to vanishing and made it your center. And it worked, not for you, but for all those that inherited from it.” Aquila swept his gaze around the table. “We all know this is the same. We all know this is the only way, and we all know this understanding of honor is our future, else we will grind ourselves to powder on an immovable obstacle.”

Kree’s beak clicked softly, and Aquila pinned him in turn with a look. “Yes, Kree. You were honorable, and did proper things, and yet you were wrong. There is no shame in that. But learn from it.” Aquila held Kree in place until he nodded, almost imperceptibly, then turned to Gérard again.

“This is well and truly a final sacrifice, for if you take a stand outside gryphons, no matter that it is to show them the way, you will be no longer one of us. That is not my price, but an inevitable fact.”

“I know,” Gérard said, his voice hoarse but chilled by that dreadful calm Rose knew so well.

“Aida will still listen to you,” Aquila said, and Aida twitched, not so much in agreement as in acknowledgement. “But your loyalty must not be to her. That is a too much a conflict for any gryphon, be he ever so honorable.”

“Then whom?” Gérard asked, tired and torn.

“There is only one.” Ganon’s eerie feathered whisper commanded attention nearly as well as Aquila’s rich tones. “Compass Rose.”

Aida narrowed her eyes at Ganon, ears flat. “Why?”

“Because she is the one responsible for our future. And because he loves her.”

Rose felt her ears suddenly start to burn, and from the corner of her eye Celestia’s cool mask slipped to show a sudden, satisfied smile before it returned. Even if she didn’t know Alce, Celestia clearly could read the mood of the conversation. Aida’s glare turned from Ganon to Gérard, then softened.

“Do you?”

“I would like to try.” Gérard met her gaze without a flicker or flinch.

“I’d like that too.” Rose found her voice again and Gérard turned to face her in turn. The tension had evaporated into a fine mist of anticipation, settling into her bones. “I realized before we arrived here that I wanted to be with you, but I had no idea how. Not when we were on opposite sides of a war, with our own obligations to our own races. But now we’re both here, outside it, and it would be awful lonely if we weren’t together.”

Gérard’s ears flicked, back and then forward, and a spark of humor kindled in his eyes. “Where you lead,” he told her. “I follow.”

Epilogue - Stories Untold

Twilight carefully put the last yellowed page with the others and frowned at the pile she’d rescued from the archives. They finished turning white as she watched, returning to crisp paper under her gaze. “That can’t be right,” she muttered. “Where’s the rest of it? That can’t be the end of their story.”

But it seemed to be. There were other documents accompanying the hoofwritten manuscript, but they were dry records, the agreements established by a diplomat that was very deliberately not named. Transfers of records of those who had fallen in the war and the establishment of a small neutral area on an island off Eyrie’s coast, bland columns of costs and personnel assignments - nothing that shed light on Rose or Gérard’s fate.

There was also nothing about what she had come for, before she’d stumbled across the dusty, forgotten box of records deep in an obscure corner of the archives. But the dribs and drabs of contact between Changelings and pre-Interregnum ponies were far less important than what she had found, be it ever so incomplete. And even if there wasn’t any more of the story, she could at least ask someone who had been there.

Well, when she woke up at least.

Twilight kept Luna’s hours more often than Celestia’s, for obvious reasons, but it was just as well she wasn’t required to get a full night’s sleep any more. And since Luna was awake, she’d probably want to hear about it too. Twilight gathered up the bundle of papers and vanished from the archives in a burst of purple.

Luna was on the balcony of her tower, watching over the mostly sleeping populace in more ways than one. Twilight still found Luna’s dreamwalking hard to wrap her mind around, since she could and did appraise every single dream at the same time, but it didn’t stop her from being available for Twilight throughout the small hours. Of late it had been more work, for she had begun to delve into the dreams of the agonizingly small Changeling population, but she still turned the moment Twilight appeared behind her. “I know that look,” she said with a fond smile. “You found something.”

“Not what I was looking for,” she admitted. “But definitely something.” A flicker of thought duplicated the bundle of papers and she set it down in front of Luna, wrapping the original back in its twine. “It’s history that I hadn’t heard anything about, and you would have missed. If it’s all true, and I think it is, I wonder why I haven’t heard of it.”

“Was Tia keeping secrets again?” Luna lofted the first page, peering at it curiously.

“Maybe. But the documents that came with it were already expurgated when they were written.” Twilight shook her head. There were a dozen possible explanations, and she didn’t want to immediately suspect Celestia even if it did fit with certain of her habits. Instead she raised her voice, calling inside the tower. “Skyshine?”

The pegasus appeared with such startling alacrity that it seemed she could teleport too. “Yes, Princess Twilight?”

“Could you have someone make and bind a clear copy of this?” Duplication was one thing, but making it readable and ready for publishing took more than a simple spell. She proffered the manuscript, and Skyshine took it carefully, no stranger to unique and valuable documents Twilight had dredged from some forgotten hole.

“Of course, Your Highness,” Skyshine said, and vanished again.

Twilight stepped over to join Luna at the balcony rail. There was no light save moon and stars, but that was more than enough for the Princess of the Night. She put a wing over Twilight in absentminded intimacy as she looked over the pages, and in return Twilight leaned into her side while the sky to the east grew lighter. After all the dense and difficult work of the past few weeks and months it was nice to find a few quiet hours to share with Luna. But it was a few hours only, and soon enough Celestia appeared on her own balcony to raise the sun.

Luna gave Twilight a nudge once the sun peered over the horizon, and the two of them flitted over to greet their fellow princess. “Good morning, you two,” Celestia said, exchanging hugs with each of them. “How was the night?”

“Not so unusual for me,” Luna replied. “But Twilight unearthed something interesting.”

“Oh?”

Twilight nodded. “I was wondering if you remembered anything about Compass Rose and Gérard.”

Celestia’s eyebrows went up and stayed up. “Well, that’s a pair of names I haven’t heard for a very long time.”

“So you do remember them!” Twilight’s wings ruffled in suppressed glee. “I found a document but it seemed incomplete, so maybe you know the rest.”

But Celestia shook her head. “In truth, I know little about either of them beyond the impressions and conclusions I formed when I met them, oh, some thousand years ago now. Once I left Aerie I never saw either of them again.”

“What? But...it seemed like they were the entire peace effort!”

“Spoilers,” Luna murmured reproachfully, and Twilight shot her an apologetic look.

“They were,” Celestia allowed. “Which meant that I wasn’t. I was...busy, at the time. Equestria was in a bad way, after the war and, I’m afraid, the Nightmare Winter.” It was her turn to look apologetic, but Luna waved it away. It was history, after all.

“Oh.” Twilight frowned, if briefly. As important as they seemed to her, it was hard to remember the two of them had crossed Celestia’s path but briefly. “Maybe the gryphons have something, then?”

“I would suggest going to the source,” Celestia said gently. “And asking the hippogriffs.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. She’d heard of hippogriffs in a purely theoretical sense, but she’d never considered them to properly exist as a race, merely the occasional result of interspecies mingling like zonies or mules. Of course, she’d never had cause to before. It didn’t take much casting about in the records she’d already devoured to find one small line ceding a previous annexation off the coast of Eyrie to an unnamed tribe of hippogriffs, and from there it was only a small leap to connect that with the history she already knew.

“I think I will,” she said, mentally flipping through her schedule. Though she hardly had to worry about anything official when it was only a few minutes after dawn. Most of her tasks were self-imposed, and she still hadn’t cracked the Changeling problem to her satisfaction, but there was dead space for the unexpected built into her morning routine. This certainly qualified. “Do you want to come with me, Luna?”

Luna pursed her lips in thought. “I think I shall pass this time. Changelings sleep late and their dreams are hard to grapple with. Out of Equestria it might not be possible at all.” Then she flashed a smile. “Besides, I haven’t finished the story. It wouldn't do to skip ahead.”

Twilight laughed and stole a kiss from her. “All right, I’ll fill you in when I get back. And you too,” she added to Celestia.

“I look forward to it.”

Twilight’s horn lit and she winked out of existence. She’d never been to Eyrie, of course, let alone the unnamed island nearby, but that was no obstacle anymore, and she spread her wings as crisp sea air washed over her. The ocean shimmered blue below her, and Eyrie looked just as the manuscript had described it, all white and green and plunging water. It reminded her in certain ways of Canterlot, and she wondered if there had been an influence.

The isle she was headed for was a miniature version, with mountains not quite as high, but still ringed by plunging cliffs and covered in verdant forest. It was several hours past dawn here, so there were already a few people awake and a-wing, silhouettes flitting about a half-vertical town sprawling up and down a mountain face. They could have been mistaken for gryphons at a distance but for the tails and cutie marks.

Twilight dropped down toward one with a talon mark on his flank and he rose to meet her, sharp gold eyes watching her the entire way. “Hello!” She said brightly, realizing that his colors were mostly blue and white like Gérard’s, though after so many years that was likely sheer coincidence. “My name is Twilight Sparkle. Is there an archivist or historian in your settlement?” She omitted the ‘Princess’ since it wasn’t an official visit and she didn’t want to make it so.

He studied her a moment before replying. She was used to sharp looks of varying sorts, given the rarefied atmosphere in Canterlot, but there was something very inequine about it that made her smile falter. Then his beak clicked, softly. “You’ll want Binder Heulwen,” he said, his rich, liquid accent falling strangely on her ears. “The building with the compass.”

“Thank you!” She smiled at him and continued on down while he darted out over the forest on his own inscrutable errand. Twilight descended to hover at the midpoint of the town, where something too small to be called a river plunged into a deep pool, and looked around for the compass.

Mostly, she saw eyes. They ranged from molten gold to pale amber, though she caught one flash of blood red before the head turned away. Another talon-marked hippogryph flew out to accost her, politely. “Are you looking for something?”

“I was told to find Binder Heulwen,” she said, pronouncing the Alce name as carefully as she could. “The person I talked to said to look for the building with the compass.”

“Yes.” His beak clicked and he flicked his wings. “This way,” he told her, gliding downward, and she followed. She studied the town and its inhabitants as they went, trying to absorb as many impressions as she could. The buildings were all wood and glass, open and airy and reminiscent of certain neoclassical pony architecture. Of course, ponies wouldn’t have omitted staircases, nor had quite so many balconies.

What caught and held her attention though, once she noticed it, was the dearth of cutie mark variety. There seemed to be no more than five marks shared between the dozens of hippogryphs she saw following her guide. Talon, anvil, crossed wheat and tree, crossed saw and hammer, scroll. She didn’t spot any others before they reached a building at the very bottom of the settlement.

Unlike the others this definitely was built for ponies, though the upper levels blossomed out into the open balconies favored by the rest of the town. And on the door there was a compass rose with a gryphon talon behind it, like a coat of arms. Twilight landed in front of it, on stone-carved stairs leading away and down toward the coast. She stepped forward to rap on the door, her guide already gone.

The door opened and the scroll-marked hippogryph beyond blinked, her eyes widening before she bowed. “Princess Twilight! This is an unexpected honor.”

“Oh, I’m not here officially,” she hastened to assure, presumably, Heulwen. “I’m surprised though, nopony else recognized me.”

“I suspect most of them did, but we are so far from Equestria. Its concerns seem rather remote to most of us here.” Heulwen’s eyes went distant for a moment, then she backed up, gesturing Twilight in. “Ah, but where are my manners? I am Binder Heulwen, and I bid you welcome to the Embassy.”

The name made Twilight’s ears prick, and she stepped in curiously. It looked old, it smelled old, it felt old. Not the age that creaked and cracked and wore things down, but the venerable, comfortable maturity of a place that had been lived in. The wood was worn but well-polished and shone darkly, the tiles in the floor clearly repaired many times over, giving them a kintsugi cast. A pair of desks dominated the lower floor, just as aged as the rest of it but still in use, to judge by the papers and books. “Thank you,” she said, breathing in the rich, dizzying scent of history. “Though I suppose I should tell you why I’m here.”

“It had crossed my mind to wonder what the brand new princess-goddess of Equestria was doing, unannounced, in Aelwyd.” Heulwen’s eyes glinted briefly, her voice holding an edge that was more gryphon than pony as she regarded Twilight.

“It’s nothing urgent,” she told Heulwen. She didn’t say it wasn’t important, because it was, but something that had stayed buried for the span of a millennium would keep. “I just recently came across a document in Canterlot’s dead archives.” The box hadn’t even been marked. “It was about Compass Rose and Gérard, but it...stopped rather abruptly. I was hoping I could find out more here.”

Heulwen was silent for a moment, then described a circle with her talon, taking in the room. “This is a good start. They lived and worked here from just a month or so after the end of the war to the end of their days.”

“Oh.” Twilight surveyed the room with new respect. “So it really was an embassy, originally.”

“And still is, really. Aelwyd does have relations with Eyrie and Equestria, however infrequent.” Her beak clicked as she regarded the piles of papers on one of the desks, somewhat mournfully. “Sometimes not so infrequent. I’m behind on my work.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt…” Twilight began, but Heulwen waved it away.

“The work will be here tomorrow. You are here now. I am sure you want more than just to see the old house.”

“Well, the document I had ended just when they were starting negotiations with Aida. I was wondering if you had any records of what came after.”

“Oh, I think I know what you’re talking about. Stripehoof took down Rose’s story at some point before they moved into the Embassy. We have a copy, but I always wondered what had happened to hers. I know Rose asked her to bury it, at least for a while.”

“Well, she certainly did.” Not that Twilight blamed her. It was hard to imagine now, but at the time hardly anyone would have understood the choices either Rose or Gérard made, and they both had family and friends to protect. Not to mention making sure the story was preserved properly, and not altered by an overly-patriotic bureaucrat.

“Most of their legacy is in Aelwydd and in us, but there are a few writings we have preserved across the years.” She beckoned to Twilight and led the way deeper into the Embassy.

“In you? Are you a descendant then?” Twilight inquired as she followed Heulwen through the back of the office, past a kitchen and up a shallow flight of stairs to a raised sitting room. The morning sun streamed in over more well-used furniture, looking sinfully comfortable in the bright shafts of light. There was also a fireplace at the far end of the room, and over the mantel there hung a painting whose subjects she recognized instantly, despite having never seen them before.

Rose and Gérard looked out at her from across the centuries.

“We all are,” Heulwen said from behind her. “There are a few rare children born of pony and gryphon couples, yes, but they do not bear hippogriffs. The children of Gérard and Rose always breed true.”

She tore herself away from the paintings to look at Heulwen with a sudden, more scholarly interest. “Really? Why is that?”

“Nobody knows.” She clicked her beak thoughtfully. “Perhaps it is because they were the first. There is always something special the first time something is done. Or it could be love. It is a powerful thing, after all, but it seems arrogant to say that none since have loved as deeply as they did. Or there are forces none of us know.”

“It could be all of them at once,” Twilight said, turning to look again at the painting. She knew very well how the world could work in mysterious ways, or at least obscure ones. “Perhaps I’ll find out for you, eventually.”

“Perhaps. It may be there is a clue in their letters.”

Twilight reluctantly turned away to join Heulwen at a small glass case set against the wall. There were only two objects inside. A thin, leather-bound volume, and a bone box. Her eyes stuck on the latter, and when Heulwen opened the case, she reached out with a hoof only to stop herself before touching it. She decided she didn’t want to know if there was anything inside it.

“These are their letters to their children.” Heulwen took out the book and closed the case again, offering it to Twilight. She took it carefully, suppressing the urge to wrinkle her muzzle at the leather. All of her books were bound with canvas, of course, but that wasn’t an excuse to be unnecessarily squeamish.

“Thank you for sharing this with me,” Twilight said, more formal than before. “I didn’t even know Aelwydd existed before today, so I know that Equestria has overlooked you. I would understand if you hadn’t felt like giving me the chance to read this, and I appreciate your generosity.”

Heulwen went still, almost motionless for a moment, then inclined her head to Twilight. “It is rare that any pony or gryphon shows real curiosity about us or our progenitors, so it is gratifying to see a princess of Equestria take a personal interest in people who are so dear to us.”

“I think it’s time for their story to become known,” Twilight told her. “And yours. We are cousin races, after all, and even if there are ponies left who would resent gryphons, we can’t allow them to stop us from being friends.”

“We may be cousin races, but we are neither ponies nor gryphons,” Heulwen canted her head. “Though I think we would welcome a closer relationship with Equestria, I do not think it is as simple as that.”

“After reading their story, I understand that,” Twilight said with feeling. “But I still think it’s worth pursuing. And I may have an even better idea after reading these.” She hefted the book.

Heulwen nodded. “If you need me, I shall be downstairs,” she said, and clicked her beak. “Catching up on the Equestrian correspondence, just in case.” Twilight watched her go, then settled on one of the couches. It was as comfortable as it looked, and she stretched for a moment before opening the cover.

The contents within were in two different styles, which meant that, incredibly or even impossibly, they were the originals, somehow preserved through the ages despite the book being clearly well-read and well-loved. And she didn’t even need to read a word to know whose writing was whose. Rose wrote in neat, squared, and clear letters, whether Alce or Equish, as befit a mapmaker. Gérard’s writing, on the other hoof, flowed smoothly, even elegantly, across the page, as liquid as Alce itself.

Though she couldn’t speak it, she could at least read Alce, courtesy of her binges through Canterlot’s vast libraries, so she settled down to see what Gérard and Rose had to say. Most of the entries were mundane if heartfelt, but scattered throughout were hints at the life they led after the end of the war.

My beloved sons and daughters,

I can never express enough how much of a blessing you have been to me. I had given up on the dream of children a long time before I even met your mother, and no matter how much I loved my Rose, she was not a gryphon. We both knew all we would have was each other, but to us that was more than enough.

But we were wrong, and wonderfully so. You are something new to this world, and you should never forget that. There will be those, both gryphon and pony, who will scorn you because you are both and neither, but their words are theirs alone and cannot touch the heart of what you are.

I have come to know you as you have grown, and each of you is, by yourself, what Rose and I only are together. The sharp yearning of the gryphon tempered by the centered confidence of the pony. The seeking and the finding without ever being truly lost. Even with this, I will not pretend the coming weeks and years and centuries will be easy, but know that I am and always will be proud of you.

Your father,
Gérard, Clan Hippogriff

For the first time she read Gérard’s words directly. The emotion in them was obvious, but she felt that she missed out on the subtleties of his Alce, which wasn’t quite the same dialect that the gryphon ambassadors spoke these days. It had a richer, more formal cadence, as befit its author, and reminded Twilight of Luna’s voice when she slipped into memory. Rose, on the other hoof, was somewhat more solid, if no less heartfelt.

My dearest children,

I think any miracle comes with a price, and you came with one I do not know how any of us will pay. Shortly after I found I was with child for the first time, Aquila came to meet with us. That was disturbing enough, but his news was worse. He was dying. What your father and I were doing, through Aida and Kree and Ganon, through letters and stories, was changing gryphons. Perhaps not all that much, in the end, but enough, and he could no longer properly be their judge.

And when you kill someone, there is a debt to pay.

But how does one repay the death of a god? I fear it is an obligation I will have to pass to you, but I trust you will not take it as a burden. It is something to be strived against and for, because it isn’t something that can be measured against goods or labor. It can only be paid by being extraordinary. In this I feel you are in good stead, with the strength of gryphons and the harmony of ponies behind you. So long as you keep your honor and integrity, I trust you will always find your way.

All my love,

Compass Rose

Twilight paused and took a breath. After finding the hole in the world where Aquila had been, she had expected to find in his death some world-shaking catastrophe, something great and terrible. But here it was, buried in a few words in an obscure place, and it was nothing less or more than change.

She had no idea how much it weighed on Rose and Gérard, and their children. It wasn’t mentioned again, and while Twilight understood the idea of indebtedness, it wasn’t writ into her bones like it was for gryphons. That small, sideways discovery made her feel more like Rose, glimpsing something entirely alien from the corner of her eye, able to grasp the shape but not the details.

My beloved sons and daughters,

We all know the world is a harsh place, and this past spring has only driven that point home with a vengeance. But we are all alive and whole. I beg you not to blame the gryphons for it, or the ponies, because it is simply their natures to act as they do. We are a bridge between, no matter how difficult that may be at times, and consider that we are all safe in no small part thanks to Kree and Stripehoof - gryphon and pony.

Ponies fear that which disturbs their harmony, and gryphons fear that which does not show its strength. You can do both, or neither. It may be tempting, especially after all that has happened, to give no offense to either, but someone must lead. I know what it is to be lost, and both ponies and gryphons must have someone to follow if they are to ever find a way between.

Your father,
Gérard, Clan Hippogriff

Despite her near-total knowledge of Canterlot’s archives, she couldn’t find any reference to the incident Gérard alluded to. Given how deeply buried the pair had been in the first place, that was hardly surprising, but it still piqued her curiosity, especially that Kree had protected them. Perhaps she could press Heulwen for more, sometime later.

The last entry in the small bound volume seemed ever so slightly more worn than the others, the ancient paper warm under the light of the sun.

My dearest children,

Now that you have children of your own, I imagine you are expecting me to give you some motherly (or grandmotherly) advice whether you want it or not. But really, I don’t know how much I can tell you that you don’t already know. In some ways children are alike all over, and when you were small you were as much a terror as any pegasus foal or gryphon fledgeling. But in other ways they are profoundly different, and where a pony child would need gentle encouragement, a gryphon child needs a challenge. But you are not raising ponies or gryphons and, I expect now, none of my children ever will be.

I know Gérard and I have made mistakes, fallen short at times, in raising you. All parents do. But few parents are in the position of raising children not only of another race entirely, but also of a race that has never existed before. All I ask is that you learn from those mistakes, and grasp the opportunity to shape the future of an entire species. The lessons you pass on will carry throughout generations.

But I’m not worried. Every parent thinks well of their children, but I feel we have been blessed, not only with you but with the others you have grown up with, and you have become all that any parent could ask for. We won’t be with you forever, but so long as you trust in yourself, you should have have no fears for the future.

All my love,

Compass Rose

Slowly, gently, Twilight closed the book. She hadn’t really found much of the story she was looking for, just fragments and outlines, the remnants of a history long past. But it was enough. It had defined a door for her to walk through, and the other side held hippogriffs and perhaps even gryphons. Even with the changelings, even with all her other duties, it was one she couldn’t resist stepping through.

As soon as she told Luna that Rose and Gérard’s story had a happy ending.