Chapters The second Gryphon expedition’s 3rd excavation had just come to an end. Trekking through the Frozen North on a return course to base camp, the group and their oxen mercenaries hauled carefully placed container after container of carefully dug artifacts from the ruins of an ancient fishing village.
They all felt lucky with their finds. The only reason they could accomplish anything this far north was due to the recent heat wave that penetrated all through the land, a scheduled event for one summer every 50 years as announced by Celestia herself to test the durability of the land, just in case somepony else had to take temporary control of the sun in her absence.
The first expedition started almost by accident when a pair of adolescent gryphons, having just left the nest, challenged each other to see how far north they could travel in that same heat wave. Somewhere in the half-melted ice, the pair encountered a stone obelisk sticking out of the ice, and reported their find to the local authorities.
The two soon found themselves in charge of the largest archaeological dig of the century, and were sworn in as officers for the North Kingdom scientific corps by the end of the summer.
Both of them were the oldest in the expedition by far, most of the other gryphons averaging to 20 years of age.
Sniffer was 68 years old, now. He had received a metal of honor from the king himself when he uncovered the most important find of that trip– the device was called the Catapult, which saved the North Kingdom from conquest nearly 3 times in the past half century.
Boss was 67. He went on to become a major after the heat-wave expedition, and was just about to be promoted to General when Princess Celestia announced her next semi-centennial heat wave summer.
The whole expedition proceeded onward, heading back to their base-camp. None had ever anticipated that there would ever be a castle this far north, but this meant that they didn’t have to set up a shelter. It also meant that because it was too cold to fly at this latitude, heat-wave or not, they would be able to set up their own defenses in case any spies or raiding parties appeared. The castle was large enough to store all of the provisions and artifacts that they could find for the whole summer if they needed to hole up there in case of an attack.
Everyone in the convoy turned and listened as one of the lookouts, perhaps 50 yards to the right of the group, shouted, “Hey boys! I found something!” he took his feathery hood off and knelt down to get a closer look.
“What is it, then? Well, spit it out, boy!” said Boss, his gruff voice typical of his age.
“I have no idea,” the scout said plainly. “Let’s dig it up!” Sniffer passed the scout and saw what he was looking at.
“Sniffer, what do you think?” said Boss. Sniffer knelt down to take a closer look.
One must understand the reason that the scout took such interest in any typical object sticking out of the ground: the ground was nothing but flat, hard-packed ice for miles around. There was no flora here, and any rocks sticking out of the ground would have to be over 12 fathoms tall to peek out of the ice. Whatever this exposed something was, it had to be artificial.
“I know this kind of claw, chief, but I don’t believe it.”
“What is it, Sniffer?” Sniffer rustled his wings uncomfortably. Despite his keen eyes and observational genius, the old gryphon hated being put on the spot, even more so when he had to break uncomfortable, or even anomalous news. Despite being superstitious, even he had a hard time believing what it was that he saw lodged in the ground. This meant, of course, that convincing Boss and the other gryphons on the expedition was going to be harder.
“Boss, I- I don’t believe what I’m seeing.”
“Well, there is obviously something there, now isn’t there?” came Boss’ harsh reply. Despite having known him for over 60 years and being childhood friends, Boss never discriminated when he yelled at someone.
“It’s a- it’s a mythical creature’s claw…”
“Well, what kind is it?” demanded Boss, obviously not buying what he was saying. “Hurry up, now, I don’t have all day-”
“It’s a Human.”
No one spoke. That was impossible. Humans are tales put in story books. Obviously no one believed the old gryphon. He himself was wondering if he was going senile.
“Well?” the boss said, as if demanding an explanation for his foolishness.
“WHY AREN’T YOU DIGGING?!”
“D-ah- Right, Chief!” everyone else blurted. The pickaxes strapped to everyone’s backpack came out of their straps and began hitting the ground.
“Careful, you fools! Don’t damage it!, I want you to dig around it.” There was a pause.
Everyone moaned. This had happened dozens of times beforehand. This simple task which should have taken five minutes was now going to take two hours.
Several hours later, the crew reached base camp. The blazing sun had just set beneath the flat horizon.
The ruins surrounding the castle were gateways to powerful secrets- this very city, ruins as it was now, was the site where designs for the catapult were discovered. From what many objects that were preserved under the ice, only to be exposed every fifty years for a few weeks of the summer, the Gryphons could tell that this place was once an expansive metropolis, housing hundreds of beings with surprising technologies. Given that there had been only 6 weeks of work done in total of the place, there was little else that could be said. None of the gryphons knew exactly how old the city was. They certainly weren’t willing to tell or ask Princess Celestia or Cadence about their finds, lest they send their armies to claim it for themselves.
The convoy passed through the empty streets; cold stone buildings loomed over their heads, still, and dark against the fading lights of dusk. Buttresses and sky bridges and pointed towers stood unmoving against the grinding winds of time, eternally preserved by the ice, many of them untouched for thousands of years. The oxen, gryphons, and sleds slowed to a grinding halt as they looked up to the ancient castle.
Boss dismounted his sled and first entered the castle while the rest of the crew unpacked and took care of the sleds. He marched through the frozen courtyard and battlements and slammed the doors open in the main lobby.
“Schultz? SCHULTZ! Get down here!” A small, short, half-bald gryphon awkwardly tumbled down a long flight of stairs that led to an overhang and more hallways above, landing with a sickening thud on the hard stone floor.
“But boss, we don’t have another-”
“Then clear out one of the other rooms and make room for this! We are are going to melt and revive a thousand year old creature and nothing is getting in my way. Where’s Herman? HERMAN!”
“Right behind you, boss,” said Hermann, a fat, clumsy, but nevertheless straight and military looking Gryphon in charge of the security force.
ZAP!
OW! SHIT! FUCK! THAT REALLY HUR- Wait. Where am I? How am I still alive? Where was I before this?
Oh yeah. Crap. I was heading home. I didn’t make it. I tripped. Damn cold. The windigoes did this. It was too cold that night.
When you trip, you hit the ground.
When you hit the ground, you stop walking.
When you stop walking, you remember how tired you are.
When you know you’re tired, your body wants to fall asleep.
When you want to sleep, you crawl in a corner and do so.
When you fall asleep… you never wake up.
Hang on a minute, why the hell am I awake, then? Am I dead? I sure don’t feel dead…If this is what feeling dead is like, then being dead sucks! I wonder what it looks like. Wait a minute, that can’t be right. I felt pain.
Pain means you’re alive, therefore, either I’m in hell, or I’m alive.
Wait a second. I know that ceiling. It’s the old castle. I'm back where I started? At least someone thought to rescue me. That's always nice. Wait. These are gryphons.
What are gryphons doing inside the castle? Oh, look, here's one now.
Wait a second...
SHIT! He’s got a knife! Why does he have a knife? Why is he pointing it at me? Oh God, I’m tied down!
Okay, okay, relax. Think. There's a gryphon with a knife heading straight toward you and pointing the thing at you. No need to panic. He’s either going to cut me loose or gut me, you know. Nothing personal.
Oh, GOD, he's looking at me. Okay, panic! PANIC! IT'S THE PERFECT TIME TO PANIC!
It’s been perhaps a week in here. After cutting me loose, no one has been in this room since.
It is a large room, however. I think this was one of the staterooms of the castle, but this architecture is new… really new. I wouldn’t think they would have a vaulted ceiling like this: I didn’t even know that that was structurally possible.
What is up with these gryphons- they don’t even speak our language- are they foreign invaders or something? They all act like scientists or something in their prissy white lab coats, looking at me from that overhang.
At least I know that isn’t part of our architecture. It looks like it was strung together with hay wire, all of them squawking in that weird gryphon language of theirs.
It’s really rude of them not to speak to me properly, but no matter how long I berate them for their incivility, they just tilt their heads as if I were crazy! Maybe I am; this is all impossible! There’s no way that these people could take our castle in one night! I wonder if those damned windigoes had something to do with this…
Stupid gryphons. They all just stare at me from that overhanging observation– thing. They won’t even touch me; they’re treating me like I’m– some– alien or something! How could they even possibly be so rude?! I thought they wanted friendly relations with our kind, not to suddenly conquer us and put me in this room for no reason… why would they put me in a room this big, anyways? The ceiling is– like– 5 times my height!
This whole thing is sketchy. It’s like they think I’m toxic or something. I mean, I know that SOME diseases transfer across species, but come on! Gas masks? Are they kidding me?
The biggest insult is this room, no matter how big it is- I feel like I’m in a zoo! At least they let me keep my clothes, but look at how they feed me and give me sanitation! They have a little washbasin with a tiny fountain for my water and other bodily functions… thank the stars they know that humans don’t like the smell of their own poop… but the way they feed me every day- they hook three fish on a string and lower it on an automated crane- these people have magic, but don’t use it right- I thought magic like that was damned expensive- where did they even get the money to power that thing- for fish?!
This isn’t right. I need to get outta here. If there was a way out. At least it’s warm in here…
I need to find something in this damned place to entertain myself. What if I were to escape? I could probably run back to the village and warn my folks that Gryphons have taken the castle… but first, I would need to get out of here. I’m not sure if that’s even possible. I can’t climb through those windows, so that’s not an option without a grappling hook. I don't think I'd get one if they asked nicely- assuming they would understand me in the first place.
The doorway has been sealed shut with fresh concrete, and I don’t have a hammer nor the means to prevent them from catching me... unless the hammer was the means of preventing them from catching me…
No, that’s not possible; there are too many of them. I have to do something sneaky or something. That’s fine with me; I like sneaky just fine… I think… I never was good a hunting…
I'm going to need to think up a way to get out of here...
It looks like whenever they lower the crane, it automatically returns to its original position. Whenever that fat one is in charge of the crane, he looks away as it returns. The crane ends up over that overhang. I could then sneak through the hole in the wall above it and crawl my way up into the attic. At least- I think this is the way to the attic. I knew the castle like the back of my hand, but this architecture- it must be an addition to the castle or something.
The fat one doesn’t seem to care too much. It’s the tall one and the bald one I need to watch out for. They actually look at me when they feed me to make sure I don’t do anything funny. I suppose those odd looking symbols on their sleeves means they’re part of some rebel gryphon alliance.
Hell, I could kill two birds with one stone by getting out of here: tell my village to send for reinforcements, and tell the Gryphon kingdom that a rebel faction has taken over our castle. Actually, never mind. I doubt they’d give a shit…
Oh look, the fat one is lowering the crane…
Herman was lowering the crane with part of their latest shipment of fish. The human looked sulky. He wished he could do something for the poor specimen. He looked down as the human took the fish off the hook. It looked at him expectantly. When he didn’t look away as the crane raised itself, the human seemed disappointed. There had to be something that he could do for the poor thing, what ever it really was. He had a hard time believing that it was really a live human.
Herman went to look for Schultz, but couldn’t find him. After managing the count-offs for the coming night-shift, he went into the castle library. The dried out room was loaded with every kind of book imaginable. Sadly enough, the scribes were still trying to decode the language of whoever it was that lived here. Herman strongly suspected that the human’s kind was actually a real part of their history and not just some myth; though that one being preserved in the ice was rather far-fetched. It didn’t matter now, anyways. He took two random books off the shelf and put them in a small box, then returned to the observation deck. He hooked the box on the crane, and lowered it down to the floor. The human picked the books out of the box and looked curiously at them. Hermann smiled and went away. He hoped he had done something right.
The human missed the crane the second time. He looked at the two books. The first one was a thick, leather-bound volume with brass clamps on the spine. On the front cover, there lay a gold image of a unicorn. There were only images. The first was of a paradise. He saw rolling hills, tranquil towns, abundant grass, and far in the background, a tall castle protruding from a mountain. There were two winged unicorns above: a pink-maned white coat, and a blue-maned dark coat. They looked like images used for the Equestrian Kingdom in the far Southeast. He had always hoped to go there one day. He took a closer look at the images. One controlled the sun, and another controlled the moon. The dark one’s night was abandoned, as the subjects of the kingdom avoided the night. The dark one was depressed, then angry. The white one confronted the dark one, probably driving her mad. The dark one rebelled, and the lighter one, forced to retain her own power and stability for her people, used a series of artifacts to banish her to the moon. So this explains the image of the so-called mare in the moon!
The human looked through the window at the glowing orb in the sky. There was no mare. Where did she go?
The other was a calendar. He wondered if he would be able to read it. He opened the front cover. This type of calendar corroded at a measured rate at the spine: one page per year exactly. The year was: 5623. The day he was frozen was the second day of spring, 4725.
After mourning for a few hours at his loss- probably of his entire species, he cried himself to sleep. This at least explained why the Gryphons had taken the castle.
Several hours later.
Schultz, being one of the only gryphons allowed on deck 5, the first fauna laboratory ever set up in the Frozen North by anyone in history, was making his rounds as a guard.
Normally, he would object to being ordered to stand guard like some common enlisted soldier, being a major himself, but it was oddly relaxing to be performing a rote, though almost foreign action to which he had lost accustomation since he was commissioned as an officer twenty years ago. He felt like a boy again, performing an action left for the youth of the army. He almost walked down the restricted hallway with a bounce in his step before approaching the overhanging observational deck. When he passed by, as on his earlier patrol routes, the human was in the same corner as he was through the previous five times he had passed through.
Through the boring, but relaxing patrol, Schultz’ cruel mind tried to think of some sort of reason the human would be acting like he was now– his weeping was highly unusual. However, being the psychopathic flesh-ripper that he was hardened into being through thirty years of service to the king’s army, he couldn’t even try to form any sort of sympathy for him. His past experiences prevented him from understanding emotions like grief or fear anymore. Schultz was a textbook case of psychopathy. Of course, it was hard to really see anything through his gas mask.
Every gryphon who had been assigned to the upper state-rooms of the castle, including the library and deck 5, was required to wear a breathing apparatus at all times to prevent one of two things: a gryphon being infected by any air-borne diseases from the sample, or an air-borne disease from one of the gryphons infecting the sample.
The gryphon peered through his mask’s lenses at the weeping human, who was, at this point, barely twitching on the ground. If Schultz was capable of doing such, he might have been crying with the human, seeing him in such pain. Alas; his mind was incapable of registering pain, especially the pain of others. Perhaps he could ask Hermann about the human’s strange activity. Perhaps he might be able to explain the human’s anomalous fits of moaning and squirming. He looked at his watch.
“Oh, good. It’s almost time. I’ll start early and wake up Hermann. I think he’ll be interested in this,” he mumbled through his gas mask to himself.
The fat Gryphon Hermann lay snoozing in his cot. No officer was deemed superior to any other soldier in Boss’ eyes- all of them slept on the cold, hard floor in one of the lower rooms of the castle, even Boss himself.
Hermann’s dreams wandered through the events of the past few days. He had been trying to communicate with the odd creature on Deck 5, though with little success. The human seemed to be angry with him whenever he spoke. Hermann supposed that this was understandable given that he was mumbling behind a gas mask and that the human was trapped in a stone castle with no means of escape.
Hermann suddenly felt a surge of pain cross through his claw. His eyes popped open, as did his mouth, which let out a long scream as Schultz pinched his claw with his own, sending waves of pain through his arm up his spine. The pain stopped as quickly as it started.
“Hermann, come. The human is sick.”
“Great gods, Schultz! Why did you have to hurt me like that?”
“Sir, pain is the most efficient form of awakening other than fear: even now, your heart-rate has increased twofold and your sensory perception has recovered in one fifth the amount of time that a simple alarm would awaken you.”
That veteran had a point, though Hermann never understood why it was necessary to put him through all that pain for the sake of a couple seconds’ time. Schultz never really did understand the concept of fear or discomfort. Damned psychopath.
“Let us go, sir. The human is sick.”
Hermann’s senses perked up immediately. He didn’t just want to preserve this human and his well-being; if Boss found out that the human might have died on his watch, he would be chained to a post and left for the vultures. Or the frost bite. Whichever came first.
He waddled through the hallways and put on his gas mask before entering the restricted section of the castle. All of the other gryphons and oxen on the journey were told that toxic chemicals were being kept there; there was no need to post a guard. Gryphon soldiers never questioned their leaders.
When Hermann came up to the observational deck, he saw that, indeed, the human was weeping. He instantly felt sorry for him. Looking on the clip-board near the desk and control panel, he saw that it was now almost feeding time. Perhaps a bit of food would help the human feel better? He slapped three fish onto the hook and grasped the controls.
The human scrambled over to the place where the hook was usually lowered. Hermann looked away, always imagining that the human didn’t like to be seen when he was eating. Suddenly, on the control panel, an alarm light blinked on. He turned his gaze down to read it:WEIGHT OPERATIONAL OVERLOAD
Wait- what? That can’t be right. The fish weren’t that heavy. The only thing that could overload the cheap magical crane that they were using would be a gryphon, or possibly… the human? … "SHIT!" Hermann looked up and saw the human, gingerly sitting on the rope with his right foot on the hook. He gracefully swing the rope and disappeared over the roof of the overhang. The hook swung back into view, and both the human, and the fish, were gone. His claw instinctively pressed a big red button.
Attention, expedition security units: internal sample breach: biological Y2-70. Internal security team, Alert. Assemble escape B hard point immediately. Sound general quarters. All containment doors sealed and locked.
Warning: potential toxicity with biological specimen. All units, apply your respirators immediately.
The alarm rang. Red lights haphazardly wired along the hallway walls lit up and flashed. Gryphons scrambled out of their beds when a gruff voice sounded over the intercom, much unlike the scary, metallic, cold feminine voice before: “You guards start from the bottom and work your way up to the top. Everyone move to the cellars. He can’t have gone far!”
The human quietly trod through the castle’s attic. The smell of old wood with the slight tang of mildew passed through the still air, along with the faint sounds of chaos from below. If the castle was as large as it was before, it would take hours of searching before they reached the attic. He was at least 10 floors up. He carefully observed his location. When he crawled through the hole in the wall, he saw the familiar part of the attic that used to be part of the Northern edge of the castle keep. If he headed straight, he would be moving south, just west of the front doors.
Seeing that some of the boards had collapsed over his thousand years' absence, he wracked his brain to remember any of the crossbeams underneath the floor to step on. That would be his surest way to get to the southern end without falling through the floor and ending up in one of the royal bedrooms.
He came upon a boarded up edge of a parapet. This must have been some half-assed expansion of the castle. Nothing was familiar anymore past this point. He climbed between two merlons of the wall and crawled in. He almost passed by an armory before stopping. Carefully crossing over, he gingerly stepped into the allotted section of the attic. The first thing with which he armed himself was a belt, one of the most useful objects a survivor could have, no matter if you have pants on or not. The next was a knife and small scabbard. The knife’s grip had a strange hole in its hand-guard, and he noticed a large, awkwardly shaped spear shaft that looked perfectly positioned to attack to it.
He suddenly took interest in it, not realizing that this was a rifle designed for the bayonet in his hands. Humans really had advanced in their secret knowledge in the 900 years that he was gone. After 30 minutes of looking through an instruction paper, which was written in the crudest, most oddly written and casual slang he had ever read, he figured out how the rifle worked.
Unfortunately, this gave the human’s general location away rather quickly, as pulling the trigger after loading the bullet elicited a rather loud sound and tore a hole through the roof. Realizing that he was going to need to hurry, he grabbed the instruction kit, and several heavy boxes of these “bullet” things, a comfortable coat and a pair of boots that actually fit him. He then continued along.
It was a slow and tedious, but strangely quiet journey. After such an enjoyable, quiet, adventurous, almost relaxing crawl and catwalk, the noise of alarm began to reach him. He was just beginning to hurry before the roof ahead opened up and he saw daylight. He didn’t feel it, however. Just wind and cold.
He scrambled over to the frozen parapet and looked down. His small cloak wouldn’t help him withstand the cold even if he were able to get out. He retraced his steps and ran across the boards (the ones which he knew were safe) and ran into the armory again. He then put on another coat on top and grabbed a grappling hook, gloves, and a chain then added a sword alongside the rifle strapped to his back.
Running back, dragging the chain with him, he heard the sound of painful squawking and crashing of boards behind and below him. The Gryphons, unable to fly because of the freezing wind, were crashing through the weakened planks one by one. He returned to the parapet and wrapped the chain around a merlon, grappling the chain with the hook. After scaling down the wall, he used all his might to swing the chain around and loosened the hook. Hook and chain clattered to the ground. He was now in the courtyard. And so were they.
Author's Note
You might have noticed that I'm cranking these out rather quickly. This is actually something I had worked on almost a year ago and found on my computer. I then proceeded to lengthen and edit the story at large. I'm actually still planning out what I'm going to do when the human finishes escaping.
The gate crashed into the moat.
The human almost started laughing at their blunder: they let the gate fall too quickly, causing it to splinter into dozens of pieces. One gryphon managed to cross, however, and the human recognized it. The fat one!
He immediately burst off southward, but the fat one was fast. He closed the distance between himself and the fleeing human. He edged closer and closer, the human arching his back so as to attempt to prevent him from grabbing his coat. Hermann was just barely in range to grab him when his back paw lost traction and he faceplanted into the ice.
The human broke the sprint, gasping in the icy air. He also slipped and fell, but quickly recovered. He looked back quickly and saw the gryphon looking up at him, a defeated look in his eyes. The human did a double-take and looked more closely.
The Gryphon was in a state of utter defeat. He looked the human in the eyes with his own.
‘Forgive me,’ they said. ‘I’m sorry’
‘I know,’ said the human’s eyes. ‘There’s nothing I can do now but run.’
‘Go. Be free. I’m sorry.’ The old gryphon’s eyes fell to the ground.
By the time he looked up again, the human was already hundreds of yards away, disappearing into the mist and the snow.
The human’s seemingly endless trek brought him out of the ice-scape, through the tundra and along a river into a canyon.
His breakfast those days usually consisted of snow.
His lunches were mainly snow, garnished with the occasional bit of snow.
His dinners were usually snow, with the rare exception of his third day, when he encountered a bird frozen solid in the snow.
Who’s the vulture this time?
The canyon floor bent gradually into the river’s bank. The stones were cold and gray– matching pretty much everything in his life so far: hardened, colorless, soulless. His hunting skills were put to the test here, though most of his meals were now composed of fish. One can only eat fish for so long, however, before becoming painfully constipated. The sensation was barely beginning to come upon him the day he left the castle.
It took days to defecate. Every time he had to was the most dreadful part of his adventure. The pain was comparable to being hit in the testicles with a club, stretched out over two days each time.
He writhed on the canyon floor, buttocks exposed to the cool of the day, which was becoming less and less miserable as the summer began to heat up and his position moved ever southward. He lay on the rocks; his entire body was sore. By nightfall, he was relieved and horribly dehydrated. As he stumbled through the canyon, he barely noticed that the path ahead was steadily climbing upward.
Soon, he was in a daze between sleep and wakefulness, when his eyes spotted something green. He felt himself moving towards it, and biting into it. Leaves. Fresh, succulent, soft, juicy leaves. Fiber rich leaves to clean his tormented intestines. He ate an entire patch of grass on that spot. He fell asleep soon after.
He thought he saw a vision of a four-legged figure in the darkness surrounded by stars. Before his dream progressed even further, he felt the sensation one gets when falling. He then hit the ground.
The further south he traveled, the more fiber came into his diet, the less painful it was to move. Following the river, he soon approached a forest. With his brain on stand-by mode for most of his 2 months of travel, he almost didn’t notice the howling in the distance. It was actually almost too late when he pulled his rifle from across his shoulders.
The human suddenly found himself surrounded on three sides by four wolves, two at his front, one to his left, another to his right. He slowly brought up the rifle and aimed for one’s head. A squeeze of the trigger, a loud bang, and a kick later, and one was dead. The one to hit right leaped up at him. He ducked and rolled backwards as adrenaline rushed through his system. The wolf’s claws and teeth snagged into his overcoat, almost giving him whiplash as he stopped at his knees.
Turning around, he saw the other two wolves moving towards him. He jabbed hard with his bayonet, cracking through its skull. The second one backed up.
The one on his coat unlatched her teeth from the leather and made to pounce him again, only to be met with a slash to her jugular. She limped away with her tail between her legs. The remaining wolf, outgunned (literally), fled farther into the canyon. The human pulled back the bolt on his rifle, aimed, and fired. No reïnforcements were going to ruin his night anymore.
There were originally 95 bullets in his possession. 90 are in packs of thirty in his pockets. 5 were in the gun’s magazine. He expended one in the attic, and two more on the wolves. He now had 92.
The journey pressed onward. A tall line of mountains appeared on the horizon through the trees. Several days later, he stood at its foot. His next plan went as follows: climb up the mountain and search for friendly civilization, then inquire about the fate of his own species.
The trek up the mountain was grueling. He shed his outer coat at the base of the mountain in a conspicuous place, hoping that some other poor soul could use it for warmth, or even that the wayward bird could make use of it after it has been torn up in the wind. Now with a single trench coat, 92 bullets, a rifle, belt and sword, the human continued on.
High up in the mountain, about half way to the top, he spotted a cave jutting inward toward the mountain center. The sun was setting and the heat of the day is fading quickly. Walking cautiously into the cave, he noticed no features within.
When he looked down, however, he noticed a widening crack in the cave floor. The ground suddenly collapsed beneath him, and he fell into shadow.
Author's Note
Too rushed? I feel like I need to flesh out some of these scenes. I'm not sure where exactly to add more details or not. It kinda feels unbalanced.
Author's Note
First Person.
VI
I woke up to a dark something. No, wait. That’s my vision all blurry. There is light in here; it’s just the ceiling is dark. And made of stone. Or dirt.
I sit up. Oh no. My stuff is missing. Someone must have taken it and put me here. Let’s see. I’m surrounded on three sides by stone wall; stone above me; stone below me; and behind me…
Ah. Shit. Iron bars. Beyond them… 5, 6, um… 20 passages that lead into tunnels. Two torches line the walls. All but one of the passages are blocked off by similar iron bars. This must be some sort of prison.
A barking can be heard in the distance through the main entryway. Uh-oh. Diamond Dogs. Ohhhhh, dammit– what did they tell me about communicating with Diamond Dogs?... something… writing… OH yes! Pictures! Yes– I have to draw in order to communicate with them since I can’t speak with them.
A Diamond Dog guard ran into the prison room. He wore an iron helmet and plate armor. His coat was incredibly dirty. He looked like he hadn’t bathed in over a year; smelled like it, too. The dog guard held a spear in his paws. He looked through the room until he noticed me. I gripped my hands on the bars and shook them to assure him that I was awake.
He turned around, pointing his nose toward the exit tunnel, and barked. Each sound was ear-piercing and painful in the echoing cavern: the sound properties of the walls ensured that I could hear the drop of a pin from another cave if everything else was quiet. Unfortunately, it was not so. My ears screamed in their agony as volley after volley of barks were exchanged between inside this chamber and outside. I slapped my hands over my ears. When he stopped barking, I kept my hands where they were, fearing that they would resume their bombardment of my eardrums. After 10 seconds, I looked back, having squeezed my eyes shut in pain. The dog was already gone, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hear anything else coming or going: my ears would not stop ringing.
A few seconds later, another dog entered the room. Luckily for my own sanity, he didn’t bark. Following him were a pair of guard dogs with spears. Both of them looked at me suspiciously, but didn’t advance on me. They stayed back at the entryway. Whatever I was going to go through, there was no escaping.
Okay, just remember. Draw pictures on the ground. He’ll be able to understand anything that I can put into a picture.
The cage unlocked, and the dog pulled me out. He growled and yipped something at me in what was probably some language that I wasn’t able to understand. I stared at him for a couple of seconds. He then growled and yipped at me again, the same thing, louder that time.
Thinking fast, I put my finger to the dirt. The dog raised his claw, preparing to strike in case I made any false moves. When he saw that I was forming an image in the dusty ground, he lowered it, but ever so slightly. After finishing my work, I slowly scooted out of the way to give him (or her) a clearer view of my message.
The entire frame of the first picture was like that of a map. In the upper right corner was a picture of a castle with a snowflake hovering above it. Drawn into the castle wall was the best picture of another human that I could make out, and formed with other little buildings around it. This was my capitol city. Slightly north of that, I drew my village next to the water. There were fish drawn into the water.
The next frame was that of a flying horse. I drew snowflakes surrounding it, and drew the lines faintly so as to try to make it look immaterial, as I had been told that windigoes were. The snowflakes flowed around the windigoes and passed into my town and the capitol city. Sadly enough, I couldn’t remember their names.
I drew myself walking, then myself fallen, and myself encased in ice.
I then drew a passing of the four seasons and a mark next to it. Further to the side, I drew ten marks inside a box. Then, ten boxes inside a circle. Nearer to myself in the ice, I drew nine circles– nine hundred years. I saw the dog's eyes widen as he read that part. In another part of the drawing, I drew myself being dug up by gryphons, then myself escaping.
Next picture was a map showing my travel south from the castle, out of the ice, into the forest, near the river, up the mountain, and into a pit.
I brooded over the images, realizing just how much I had been going through.
took a few moments to think sometimes pointing t different parts of the picture to clarify my meaning. After thinking for a little longer, he suddenly swiveled around, wiping all of my work away with his tail. Then, he began to draw something in its place. When he finished, he jestered for me to look.
I saw what looked like an equation for an exchange. On one side, my hands, sifting through a pile of rubble, separating rocks from dirt from gems. On the other side of the double-headed arrow, Diamond dogs guiding me to the winged unicorn.
I circled my thumb around the mound. And put a questioning look on my face. I then moved my hands around, asking for dimensions. The dog showed me- the pile was as large as my torso. I smiled inwardly, knowing that I was at an advantage of this deal they were forging with me.
I knew that the dogs thought that they were asking a lot from me. From my studies on local civilized and tribal fauna, a pile like that would require months of work given the inefficiency of the dogs’ paws. For me, however, it would take perhaps 6 hours.
I put my hand to my jaw, pretending that I was weighing my options. I slowly, trying to contain my excitement, nodded my head, and extended my hand. Looking at it, the dog tentatively extended his paw. I quickly took it and shook it up and down twice, then returned to my cage. The dog cautiously backed away from me. He left the room, but didn’t summon the guards with him, who both kept their eyes on me, with the exception of the one on the left, who only had one. I sat down on the floor to make myself comfortable.
Sitting in the cave was a boring affair. The dog guards barely seemed to acknowledge me as a person, rather just as a simple threat. I came to the sudden realization that I had to pee. Knowing that the guards would just block me and not understand what I would try to communicate with them, I stuck to my second best option. Being naked, I didn’t have to take my clothes off, so, without further ado, I scraped a bit of dirt out of the ground to form a hole, pissed in it, and covered it back up.
The dogs seemed impressed by my courtesy, however, like yawning, the urge to piss was contagious. Both of them went. Straight on the floor. I was rather disgusted, but didn’t pay too much mind. Pee was sterile when it came out, anyways. Our alchemists determined that it was nothing but water and toxic salts. I was almost laughing at their silly behavior, reminding me of the dog sleds we used to use back home.
The Diamond dog leader returned, pulling a small cart with a small wooden yoke around his neck with a small pile of shiny dirt.Hell, this is gonna be easy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC0-DkvSxyU
I waited outside the mountain as the Diamond Dog King lit up the torch.
Two minutes later, another torch lit up, perhaps 5 miles away in the next mountain.
1 minute later, a torch 20 miles away lit up. I cast an inquisitive look to the Diamond Dog King. He merely glanced at me and continued his silent vigil. The two guards at my side didn’t move.
Suddenly, the night sky lit up in fire of a different type: a flare that couldn’t be put out: the flare of the sun.
I had never directly seen the sun before. This might be hard to believe, but one must understand whence I came: it was always cloudy, even if it wasn’t. If one were to come to my homeland in the clearest of days, he would say that there is an inexplicable mist over the sky, preventing the sun from being completely seen.
I, on the other hand, saw an inexplicable clarity in the sky. The stars shone like blazing torches in the sky, each one individually disappearing. The sunrise was approaching quickly. As it first peeked above the horizon, I felt a happiness that I couldn’t explain.
I felt like everything in my life was going to be perfect forever. I felt like there was never going to be an unhappy conflict ever again as I gazed into the morrow. Bliss filled my every being. The sky’s hues turned from jet to violet to blue, in such pure forms that I had never ever seen before.
As the sun was fully raised in the sky, I felt compelled to stand erect where I stood. I unholstered my rifle. The guards flinched, but the King simply looked at me.
Everything but my mind compelled me to do it: another thing that cannot be explained. I raised the rifle, pointing to my upper left. I clicked the heels of my boots together, and pulled the trigger.
BANG.
The King started. His two guards flinched, not knowing what to do. I pulled the bolt counterclockwise and back.
BANG.
The figure in the sunlight grew bigger, floating in the sky. It was a carriage with four of those winged horses, and another, larger, horned one sitting in the seat.
BANG.
I stood erect, holding up my best military salute– as best as I could remember. I had just made a salute to the rising of the sun. I didn’t know, however, that I was about to meet the one who did it.
Suddenly, I could make out the shape that sat upon the carriage. It was the heavenly queen on her flying throne. The four Pegasus guards looked bewildered at my appearance.
I saw her. In all her majesty. Her coat was white as the purest mountain snow. Her golden slippers sang praises to the sun she raised. The amethyst embedded into her yoke necklace shimmered hypnotically. Her muzzle and face were flawless, emitting a light of their own.
Her eyes were indescribable. They held the energy of a thousand men, the experience of a thousand years, and the weight of a thousand burdens.
I couldn’t speak. Rather, I fell prostrate onto the ground. She approached my form; I looked up to the surprised sight in her eyes. Before she could react to my presence, I grabbed her hoof and began kissing it, loving every minute of it.
After a while, she pulled her hoof back and nickered something to me. Of course, I didn’t understand.
From what I knew and had been told through all of my education and town talk, Princess Celestia was the most benevolent, caring, loving creature in the world. Given this, I assumed that she would take me in to her place and help me find my way through this world.
I heard the Dog king growl and yip something in her direction. She nickered and blew her nose in her own language. The two of them carried on with this conversation. Whenever I looked up, I could see their faces contorting and responding to each other as if in conversation.
After a few minutes’ talking in their respective speeches, they both bowed to each other, and the Diamond Dog king left with his two guards. I hadn’t moved an inch with the exception of my head.
She nickered something to me as I lay. It seemed inquisitive. I can’t remember what I said to her, but I went into full submission to her mercy and giving off excess flattery and praise in the process. It might not have been flattery: she was as beautiful as I said that she was. I clung to her hoof, feeling safety encompass my being, surrounding me. I might as well have been in heaven. At her very touch, every scar on my body felt like it was fading; every aching joint released its tension, and a warm, bubbling feeling faded through her into my hands.
The relief of her presence before me reduced me to a mumbling heap on the ground. The guards glanced at each other upon this humble sight of myself.
Given that this was the first time that I had spoken to another being in 900 years, I felt a burden life from my chest. She snorted and nickered again, pushing me with her nuzzle like a mother to a foal onto the carriage.
The journey to Canterlot wasn’t what I had exactly expected. I had thought that the princess lived in a wild forest as a means of defense from hostiles. It seemed that now they lived in a city on a mountain in the middle of the Equestrian countryside.
The view from the floating carriage was incredible. I had never seen such saturated color before. It was like my entire life was filmed in extremely low quality color film, sometimes going into black & white when there were no colors to be seen– and suddenly changing to a High Definition movie theater with a thousand pixels in a square inch. My eyes literally ached from the beauty of the land and the Princess beside me.
Every once in a while, the Princess would talk to me. I was very sad that I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I would only tilt my head inquisitively and shrug when she seemed to ask me a question. Half way through the trip, she sighed, snorted, and then whickered softly to herself. I didn’t understand a word.
Author's Note
I still feel like this is missing something or needs to be rewritten. It's hard to put inexplicable emotions on paper. Tell me if you have a hint as to what I should do. I hope to rewrite this chapter. It feels so forced- the descriptions and actions don't flow the way I want them to.
Everything the next day seemed to be a complete blurr of colors and sensations, one leading into the other like some sort of odd dream sequence. My vision was all misty and stuff, like there was this haze or fog. I couldn't see past 20 feet in front of me except for the sunrise. I remember waking up in some sort of night-time, and seeing a bunch of colors rise up in the sky. It was a sunrise or something.
is this... life, it or something? If I homed stay, I might be able to clear thinkly, instead of blurr in this live. Oh, great, now I'm backwardsing my stuff and words. Guhhhh. I'm just gonna look at the color pretties and nuzzle them. I think I made her laugh when I did that. Can she read my mind? Uh huhuh that would be cool... Ugh, my mind's not thinkly clearing! I just nuzzled into her hair. It smelt good. I could hair her nuzzle all day because it goods so smell...
I think that's food. There's leafy things on plate with a knife and fork. I picked up the fork, but-- damn, this thing was complicated. I had to lever it to food the stab, then put it in my mouth. Eh, screw that, I'll use my hands. No, wait. That's not a fork. That's a spoon. That that's soup. Not a salad. No, wait there is a salad, it's just over there... Oh, Gods, is this life? I just kinda lowered my face into the salad and started crying and pounding my fist on the table or something. I think ponies were staring. No, wait. My face is in the soup. That's why I can't breathe. That muches so explain! Wait, what?
I somehow managed to finish my meal and felt a little bit more energized, so I started walking places.
Lookie there, the blue one is flying too! She's only like 6 feet away. I can walk there. I got off the white one and tried to walk to where the blue one was flying.
A few minutes later, and I saw there were ropes around my torso. No matter, I was on something soft, so I'd be all happy and stuff.
"Pretty white Horsey, can you get me some whater? I'm hungry." I tried to breathe in the water, but my throat started coughing it up for some reason....
There were three gryphons with rods pointed in his direction, running over toward him. It was hard to see their faces, but he could sense a bit of fear through the optics of their gas masks.
Instinct kicked on, as did a few shattered and incomplete memories of military training. No matter how much harm it could do sometimes in the heat of the moment, the fight–or–flight response did more good than harm when it came to living this far north of the borders of the Gryphon Empire– if there still was an empire left after 900 years.
He pulled out the rifle that was strapped over his shoulders. Though the Gryphons looked slightly bewildered by the shape of your spear, they are nonetheless frightened of it: all three of them dismissed the shape of the rifle as a more comfortable design for human graspers.
He swung the bayonet at the center gryphon, leaving a gash in his staff and dazing him with his speed, then swiped at the left one’s leg, grazing it and drawing blood. The human leaped, pushing through the two of them, leaving the right one with his lower beak hanging open. When the human was about 10 feet away, all three of them jumped up at the same time to try to give chase.
The slightest glimpse of the arrowhead confirmed his suspicions. The arrow was designed with a cup to prevent full body penetration, and the tip was coated with some odd purple substance: probably a tranquilizer.
The human sprinted into one of the guard towers and closed the door behind him, barring it with the small plank that was meant just to do so. Turning around, he saw a gryphon stumbling down the wooden staircase and squawking, and not even noticing him. He too, also had nothing but a quarterstaff in his claws. Before the gryphon could even get a good look at the cause of the slamming of the door, the human swung the butt of his rifle, landing it squarely on his forehead. He was out like a light.
At the top of the wall, the human noticed a big change in the structure of same. The walls were much, much thicker; the battlements were twice as wide as he remembered. The oddest thing was a series of metallic cans pointing outward from the wall. He had never known what artillery was. The solid metal tube on wheels, he observed, not really knowing what it was really called, however, was usable for the purpose that he was looking for: getting down and out of the castle. Now all he needed was a piece of rope. There was none in the tower he was in, so he charged across the wall to try to reach the next one.
Several arrows whizzed past his shape as he ducked and jumped to dodge the missiles swishing by his belly. Another gryphon stood at the door to the next tower. He charged him, knocking the gryphon, and several more, as well as himself to the floor. He was the first to get up; he then pointed his bayonet knife at the throat belonging to the first gryphon he saw. Everyone held still. The human looked up; the other gryphons stood very, very still, afraid that if they made any sudden moves, their comrade would be gutted.
He pointed at a coil of rope hanging from a nail in the wall. The gryphon nearest gulped, and slowly clawed it to him. After taking the rope, the human Sparta-kicked him, leaving him sprawling on his comrade as the human bolted from the door.
One slip-knot and rappelling experience later, the human was in the moat-ditch. He suddenly heard a clatter thirty yards to his left. The draw-bridge was dropping.
Author's Note
Bit short? I will be adding emotions to the next part. Lots of angst and fear- and even a little regret.
