Diaemus had joined the Enforcers expecting a life of excitement and days filled with fighting against criminal scum, but had instead faced endless drills and weapons training, with instructors that either didn't respect his noble status at all, or who were fawning over him and causing the other recruits to disrespect him instead. The fact he was the youngest recruit by ten years didn't help with the respect thing at all. They didn't respect his weapon skills either, he thought it was because he was the only one that didn't have a bunch of scars at the onset of training - as if he could help it that he'd always worn protective gear during sparring! He'd still been instructed by some of the best fencing masters in the country, and when it became time for one on one sparring he'd shown the other recruits a thing or two. The group fights were worse by far, though, and during one of them he'd gotten his first scar ever, on his left shoulder after getting in the way of one of the other recruits during a formation fight.
That's not what he told the mares in the bars of course.
Despite the difficulties he'd managed to graduate, and was looking forward to finally stopping robberies, doing daring raids against rebel safehouses and - most importantly - duelling evildoers on the rooftops. He was getting none of it. In his first week he'd been stationed in the merchant quarter and not any exciting location at all! He could practically see the roof of the mansion from his patrol route! His days had consisted of listening to complaints from shop owners, having muggings and thefts reported to him, and even having his purse stolen once in a crowd while lecturing a pony who was operating a ball and cups table without a permit. He hadn't witnessed even one violent crime, and the worst fighting he'd have to do all week was to poke at some homeless ponies with the butt of his spear to get them to move. At the end of his first week he was thoroughly bored and thinking about quitting and joining a mercenary company instead. That's when he finally got the chance he had been waiting for, when one of the maids from the Castle View tavern came running out to fetch him, reporting a drunk and disorderly gryphon on the balcony. Finally! A fight worth the name!
He marched through the main room of the tavern with (he hoped) an impressive and authorative stride. Steeling himself for the coming flurry of razor sharp talons, beating wings and snapping beak he readied his spear and kicked open the door, calling out
"Enforcer! Stand down!"
Nothing.
At first he thought the perpetrator had fled upon hearing him coming, but then the maid - who had followed him in - pointed accusingly with a forehoof at a table in the corner.
"There she is! Deal with her!"
That's when he realized the table wasn't, as he had thought, unoccupied. Behind an impressive collection of bottles was a young gryphoness. Had she drunk all that herself, he wondered, and he must have wondered it out loud because the maid offered an emphatic "Yes! In less than two hours, too. And now she keeps wanting more but she can't hold onto the bottles anymore!"
Diaemus could see how that might be the case. The gryphoness could hardly sit upright anymore and was practically laying on the table, halfway keeled over sideways against the railing. As he burst through the door she had been reaching for one of the bottles in front of her but missed, instead knocking it over and watching helplessly as it rolled onto the floor, fortunately without breaking. As she looked up with bleary, unfocused eyes and recognized his uniform - and the spear pointed at her - she thought for a moment and then slurred, "I done nothin." She made a clumsy sweeping gesture to indicate the bottles, knocking most of them over in the process. "I paid fo... fo alla dis." Then she lost her balance and fell face first onto the table. He turned to the maid who nodded. "She's paying, that's not the problem. We're just afraid she'll die in here. It's not good for our reputation if..." "Yes, yes..." he interrupted, angry at having his daring rescue turn into a shooing off of lowlife.
He walked around the table to where the gryphoness was sitting, and was taken aback. She was just a teen! She had ashen fur and cream coloured feathers, a combination that would have been striking if she hadn't ruined the impression completely with a heavy black jacket and a multitude of rings and piercings. As she turned to look at him he saw she had even dyed some of her feathers into a black stripe, and was wearing way too much mascara. His mother had a name for mares who did that and it wasn't polite.
“Listen…” he started, in what he hoped was a kind but authorative tone. “I think you’ve had enough…”
“Noddenuff…” the gryphoness protested, wearily raising her head to regain eye contact with him.
“Listen…” he tried again. “I think you should go home now…” Then he had a brilliant idea.
“You can take some bottles with you, and then you can continue drinking there.”
“I don wanna go home…” she whined, sounding like his sister’s youngest filly when it was time to go home from the playground.
“I don w-wan be ‘lone ‘gain…”
She laid her head to the side and batted her eyelashes at him, or at least tried to, in some sort of clumsy attempt to charm him? He wasn’t sure. Then he saw the streak of red dots across her chin and her cheek that had been obscured by the table before. That wasn't makeup, that was... blood? His heart started beating faster. “Whose blood is that?” he demanded, pointing with the tip of his spear. That was apparently the key to make the gryphoness tantrum.
“He left me alone!” she wailed, raking with her talon across the table and knocking over whatever bottles were still standing and lurching over forwards in the process, dangerously close to impaling herself on his spear. She puffed up her chest and opened her wings, forgetting she was still sitting at a table and got one of them caught in the railing as a result, taking all the effect out of the display as she clumsily disentangled herself.
“Who left you alone?” he asked, pulling his spear back a bit so she wouldn’t hurt herself on it.
“Mu-muh… muh stupid date, tha’s who!” She pounded her clenched talon on the table for emphasis, hitting the neck of a bottle and sending it flying across the railing and onto the rocks below where it smashed into a million bits. Diaemus silently added littering to the list of offenses which now included a possible murder.
“Where did he leave you?”
“Ousside de arena.”
The tantrum had subsided and she was turning mellow now, slumping back down over the table.
“And then you killed him?”
Diaemus had it all figured out now. The date had gone wrong somehow and she’d flown into a rage. Typical gryphon.
“I di’n kill ‘im! That uvver one did! Big black maned s-stallion! S-s-stabbed him!”
She started sobbing, laying her head on the table and fumbling for a bottle without managing to grab hold of one. Another two rolled onto the floor, but only one broke. Unable to get a drink, she started crying, making an even bigger mess of her mascara.
Diaemus tried to piece the fragments together. Someone had been stabbed by a stallion with a black mane and she had been abandoned outside the arena? He pulled out his notebook and started writing.
“So… you were on a date…?” She nodded, still crying and groping for bottles without much success.
“And there was a fight? And your date got stabbed?”
“No! Stupid!” she got on her elbows and glared at him, or tried to.
“The white stallion got s-stabbed… right inna neck, and… and there was blood just… s-spurting…”
She made a gesture with her talon to indicate a fountain of blood from her neck, and then the memory must have gotten too vivid, because she started to retch and gag, scrambling to her feet and diving for the railing. She got her head across over the water just in time before she started throwing up, talons clutching the wood of the railing while her body shivered with the waves of nausea. The sight and sound of it made Diaemus rather sick too.
She took a while to finish and he had plenty of time to wonder just how much she must have drunk that evening before she finally calmed down, slumped over the railing like a wet rag, now and then spasming with a dry heave.
“Feeling better?” he asked, not really knowing what to say.
“No.”
She sounded so miserable he couldn’t help feeling sorry for her for a moment before he remembered she was still a criminal and a lowlife.
“So there was a fight outside the arena and a pony was stabbed?” he ventured. “Why didn’t anyone report this?”
She shook her head slowly.
“It was in the arena…” She retched again, gagging, but nothing came up and she calmed down, taking a couple of slow, deep breaths.
In the arena? Suddenly it dawned on Diaemus and he felt extremely annoyed.
“You were in the arena? Watching a fight?”
She nodded and he put his hoof to his forehead, tearing out the page from the notebook.
“So you were watching a fight in the arena and some pony got stabbed? What’s your problem?”
The gryphoness laboriously turned her head to face him. It was not a pretty sight. Tears were still running down her face along with the mascara, mixing with snot and vomit. At least the blood was washed off now.
“Because he d-died! R-r-right in f-fu-fuhront of me!”
She started crying hard, shaking and sobbing.
“And the blood was all over me and… and he looked r-right at me l...like th-this…”
She stumbled a little closer to him, making a wild, panicked face and he inadvertently took a step back.
“An-and then his eyes w-went all…”
This time she didn’t have time to head back to the railing or even turn her head, but threw up right on the floor, vomit splattering everywhere. Fortunately it was nowhere near the previous amount, but he still got it all over the front of his uniform and shoes and for the first time he was genuinely thankful for the mask.
He reached out a hoof to help stabilize her and she calmed down, holding onto his leg.
“An-and then he…” she gagged again, but managed to keep it down this time.
“And I got s-sick and my date he j-just left me!”
Diaemus felt pretty sure he would have too, in the same situation. She was getting extremely annoying and clingy.
“It’s time to get you home.” he said sternly. “What’s your name?”
“I don’ wanna go home…” she repeated in a high pitched whine and started sobbing again. Fortunately he had spotted her wallet in her jacket pocket and fished it out while she was trying to steady herself. Flicking it open he withdrew her ID and gave it a look, and immediately his heart sank.
Cassandra Thornwing.
Of all the drunken gryphon teens he could have come across, he stumbled an the daughter of Hector Thornwing, the weaponsmith. That guy had connections…
He had to get her home quickly.
She was already halfway slumped over him, so he shifted himself, let her lay across his back, and then he lifted her up. The jostle caused her to throw up again, just a little, and then she passed out. At least that stopped the whining…
He started walking out toward the street, careful not to bang her head too hard against the tables and walls on the way.
