The atmospheric rumble of the four Rolls Royce turbofans reverberated through the cockpit as I grinned over at a starry-eyed Buttercup. The ecstatic earth pony was sitting on her haunches in the First Officer’s seat with her maw open, and her forehooves bunched up against her barrel. She hadn’t uttered a word since taking a seat, but kept gazing around at the various screens, buttons and dials like kid in a candy shop.

“Hey, Buttercup. Gi’me your hoof,” I chuckled, holding out my palm.

She didn’t even appear to have heard me. Her ears swivelled almost like little radar dishes on her head, and her eyes darted over the flickering screens, trying to take in as much information as they could. It was one of the most amusing and adorable things I’d ever seen.

“Buttercup?” I tapped her shoulder, and the poor mare nearly jumped out of her coat.

“I…” she squeaked, her eyes snapping to me. “It’s… It’s so… I don’t even… How do you even control this?”

Another chuckle escaped me. “I know it looks complicated with all of the switchgear, but the main controls are quite simple. Let’s start with something easy. Now, gi’me your hoof.”

She tepidly extended the requested limb, and I grasped her by the fetlock, gently positioning her hoof at the throttles. “Now, slowly push this forward,” I instructed, removing my hand from the equation.

She did so, and the engines reacted, spooling up to a considerable volume. “Eeee,” she squeaked, her ears flattening and her forehoof snapping back to her chest.

I barked out a laugh, my feet slipping off the brakes. The jet began to roll forward into the hangar. “Okay—now we need to stop. You’d better be quick, or we’ll end up going right through the back wall,” I warned, unnecessarily pointing at said wall.

“Wh-What? B-But, I don’t know how to stop it!” Buttercup yelped.

“The brakes are on your side—look, it’s just the little doohickey by the whatyamacallit,” I muttered, pointing to an obscure redundancy control that I’d never actually used before. I think it had something to do with passenger cabin ventilation cycles, but I wasn’t entirely sure. “Hurry up, Buttercup, or Hurricane hangar is gonna have a Slipstream shaped hole in it!”

“No! No, Jack! Ah’m not ready for this. Ah can’t,” she panicked, pawing at the control panel in completely the wrong place. Her southern accent thickening under pressure was the icing on the cake.

I waited as late as I dared to jam the brakes back on and shut the throttles off. Buttercup let out a yelp, almost face-planting the ECAM as the jet ground to a sudden halt. Her face was hidden behind her forehooves, and she was visibly shaking. I probably would’ve felt a bit guilty, if it hadn’t been so damned funny.

“Oh, man, that was priceless!” I snickered, just as the cockpit door swung open, revealing a snow-white unicorn with graceful pink curls.

Felix took one look at Buttercup cowering behind her forehooves and levelled me with one of her steelier glares. “D’you want me to headbutt you in the chest? ‘Cause I’ll do it!”

“Relax! It’s just a little prank. Isn’t that right, Buttercup?” I chuckled, pulling the engine kill switches one by one. The din died down, leaving only the distant hum of the APU, which I hadn’t bothered shutting off before.

“Never do that again! A-Ah thought we were going to crash,” Buttercup squeaked, her eyes wide and accusatory.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I chuckled, climbing out of my seat and flicking the APU and battery switches off. I leaned over the center console, rubbing a palm over the earth pony’s cheek and partway down her long neck. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” Gazing into those brilliant turquoise orbs, I leaned closer and whispered, “I just think I’m funny sometimes.”

Buttercup’s expression melted, her lips curling into a somewhat reluctant smile. Success!

“I can vouch for that,” Felix muttered from behind us. “Come on—we need to get off the plane so the groundsponies can plate her up.”

CRACK!

“GAH! FUCK!”

Narrowly avoiding a faceplant, I stumbled sideways and ended up tripping over Felix’s hindquarters. Again. “I swear to god, woman! One of these days I’m going to snap that horn off your head and shove it right up your arse!”

“Ooh. Kinky,” Felix chuckled, already trotting away from me along the corridor we’d just teleported to. Where the corridors at the academy were painted a bright blue, it seemed the earth ponies prefered a more reserved gunmetal grey. “Come on. I’ll show you around. Care to join us, Bee?”

Buttercup, who had braved the teleport with a fair bit more grace than I had managed, shook her head. “Ah’d love to, but ah’ve got a mountain of paperwork to fill out for tomorrow's voyage. Turns out transportin’ an endangered species comes with a whole lotta red tape.” She gave us an apologetic grin. “Ah’ll see you guys tomorrow. Swift Hooves appointed me to watch over y’all when you’re in Canterlot… Not that you’ll need it.” She winked, before disappearing through a doorway to a smaller, equally grey corridor.

I watched her trot away, her shapely, toned earth pony flanks gently swaying side to side, causing her tail to swish slightly behind her. A sudden, unbidden thought of what it would feel like to slide a certain part of my anatomy between those toned flanks burst onto the forefront of my mind. I closed my eyes, shaking my head a little. Since when did I fantasise about ponies and not be grossed out about it? It just wasn’t like me…

“Like what you see?” Felix suddenly asked. She was standing right beside me again. I hadn’t even heard her trot back over.

“What? No!” I spluttered, flinching at her proximity. I cleared my throat. “I mean, Buttercup seems like a nice pony.” Yeah. That’s what I meant. Totally saved it. Go Jack.

Felix slowly smiled, her eyes studying my face. “You can like more than one pony, Jack.”

I frowned. “That doesn’t sound right.” Like, not right at all. Was she seriously okay with this? Even if that was the case—more than one pony was a bit of an understatement at this point, if I was being honest.

Felix made her way once more along the corridor, throwing back a sultry glance in my direction. “Maybe back in England. But here in Equestria, things are a little different.”

I slowly followed her, trying not to ogle her swaying flanks. Her tail was swishing, but not quite enough to reveal any of her exiting bits. “Different? Different how?”

“Well, have you noticed that everywhere you go, there are a lot more mares than stallions?” she asked. Her flanks continued to sway. Quite unnecessarily, if you asked me.

“I thought that was a military thing? Like how men are supposedly the dominant sex back home, so there are more men in the armed forces.”

Felix let a musical chuckle escape her throat, and it surprised a passing earth pony stallion so much he walked straight into a closed door. “The skewed gender ratio is apparent throughout the entire nation, not just the military. For every five mares, there is only one stallion.”

“Wow. That… sucks.” All those mares without any company. No one should have to be lonely.

“Yeah, but mares make do. Most of us don’t mind sharing,” she expressed, throwing a glance to the lime green stallion now rubbing the growing lump on his forehead. When he spotted Felix’s gaze, he threw up a hasty salute, yelping out a strangled “Lieutenant Felicity” and determinedly staring at the floor, his ears flat and his hooves trembling.

Felix gave him a friendly nod as she passed by. No sooner had her gaze left him, his own began to roam over her slim barrel, eventually homing in on her flanks and tail. “Hey—Hungry Eyes, her face is at the other end!” I snapped at him.

Felix threw a glance over her shoulder, her eyes flashing over me, then settling on the stallion. He jumped about a foot into the air with a look of sheer terror, then bolted so fast he nearly took one of the doors clean off at the end of the corridor.

Felix blinked, raising an eyebrow at me. “Was that necessary?”

“He was getting an eyeful of your business!” I protested, motioning both hands to her backside for emphasis.

Felix sighed. “Not to sound like a stereotypical vain member of the Canterlot elite here, but nearly every stallion checks me out. It’s not like I don’t notice.”

“So… You don’t mind them seeing your junk? Because let’s be honest, your tail ain’t hiding much most of the time.”

The unicorn stopped, her gaze once again levelling me. “And just how would you know what my tail is or isn’t hiding?”

“Just a passing observation,” I replied, absentmindedly adjusting my tie and avoiding her gaze.

Felix smirked. “Yeah. Right,” she muttered, shaking her head as she set off again.

We passed out through a set of double doors onto a small courtyard. The sun had long since sank below the mountains, and the first stars were beginning to appear in the night sky. I gazed up at the unfamiliar constellations, marvelling at their otherworldly beauty. Apparently, there was a Princess of the Night that controlled the passage of the moon, and arranged the stars as she saw fit. I’d had a hard time believing Raindrops when she had explained it to me a couple of weeks ago, but after everything I’d seen since then, it seemed a lot more fitting.

The courtyard was situated at the edge of what appeared to be a botanical garden, beneath a canopy of tall birch trees. A large number of exotic plants that I didn’t recognize were situated in neat little rows in the grass, with small gravel paths running next to them. A lot of the plants were glowing a light blue, not unlike the gem in Felix’s collar often did.

“Not hard to tell this base is run by earth ponies, eh?” Felix remarked, her hooves crunching along in the gravel as her eyes scanned the colourful flora.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathed. The magical biome spanned over many acres, some of it even lighting up part of the mountainside. What had looked like a plain old forest from the air had transformed into a glowing wonderland by night.

“Welcome to the Garden of Self-Possession. Princess Celestia planted the first tree here when she was just a filly. Since then, ponies from all over Equestria come to visit.”

A frown crossed my features. “But, this place looks ancient. Just how old is Princess Celestia?”

“Nopony except Celestia herself actually knows the answer to that, except maybe Princess Luna. But, if I had to guess, I’d say at least over four thousand years. Luna is slightly younger, but not by much in the grand scheme of things.”

I did a double take, hastily sidestepping something that looked suspiciously like a venus fly trap. “Four thousand? How is that possible?”

“Well, they are immortal demi-gods, not to mention supreme leaders of all three of the equine races.”

“And we—Jess, Jason, Leanne and I—the four of us, are supposed to meet them tomorrow?”

“Celestia? Yes. Word is she’s quite curious about you. She would have met with you guys earlier but her schedule is pretty hectic,” Felix replied, with an air of nonchalance. “As for Luna, she usually sleeps through the day. Ah, here we are,” she added, stopping just short of a copse of trees.

Her eyes scanned the glowing undergrowth surrounding the white, scarred trunks. After a few moments, she slipped through a small gap in the brush, motioning for me to follow her. “Where on God’s Earth are you taking me?” I muttered, stooping low to fit through the gap.

“This isn’t God’s Earth, and you’ll see,” she softly replied.

On the other side of the undergrowth, I was greeted by moonlight, and a low hanging cloud of steam. “No way…”

“Ta da!” Felix sang, trotting a couple of paces into the steam.

Three naturally generated rocky pools of hot, crystal clear water dominated the center of the clearing. Two of them were elevated, and running into the larger third one that was sunk partway into the ground. The glowing flora intertwined with the trees of the clearing perimeter was so thick that it was impossible to see through. The hot springs were completely secluded from the rest of the forest.

“I’ve wanted to show you this place for a while now,” Felix said. She approached the water’s edge, slowly dipping a hoof to the surface. “Just the right temperature,” she added, with a half-lidded smile.

“You want to take a dip?” I asked, eyeing the steaming pool. I had an idea of where she was going with this, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

“I want us to take a dip,” she purred, deftly stepping into the water. Knew it.

With a swift movement that somehow barely disturbed the water, Felix slipped beneath the surface, horn first. She surfaced after a few moments, a combination of gentle ripples and slight displacement causing water to cascade over the sides of the pool. Hooking her forehooves over the rocky edge, she blasted me with her most sultry gaze yet, gently biting down on her lower lip. The pink locks of her mane, now saturated, hung limply either side of her face. The deep black lashes framing her eyes suddenly seemed twice as long as they usually were.

“My, uh… uniform will get wet,” I muttered, before actually thinking about how incredibly stupid that excuse was. Fuck.

“Take it off, genius.”

Her logic was flawless. I kinda had reservations about her seeing me naked, though. She was used to stallions, presumably. Whilst I was more than adequately endowed—in my humble opinion—I wasn’t a freakin’ horse.

“Come on, Jack. Don’t be shy,” she purred, fluttering those exquisitely long lashes.

Fuck it. “No peeking, you hear?”

Felix snorted. “Yeah, ‘cause you’ve always averted your gaze from my tail.”

Ignoring her last comment, I fumbled with my tie, eventually removing it along with my blazer. They were quickly followed by my shirt, boots and trousers. Before Felix could even say anything about my boxer shorts, I lunged toward the pool, jumping at the last moment and dive bombing.

Heat engulfed my body. I gasped in thermal shock, inhaling a large amount of water. Quite a lot of it sprayed everywhere, drenching a few of the strange glowing plants and causing them to physically recoil. Felix would’ve got a faceful if she hadn’t been quick with her forcefield. I eventually managed to resurface, nearly coughing up a lung in the process. Once the waves had settled, she gave me a bemused look. “You’re such a foal, sometimes.”

I splashed a bit more water at her in response, grinning all the same.

“Quit it,” she giggled, before suddenly swimming over to me alarmingly fast, her horn sticking out of the water like a shark fin.

“Woah!”

Determined forehooves embraced my shoulders, as a strong set of hind legs encompassed my waist below the waterline. Before I had even registered what was happening, she had me pinned against the rocky edge of the pool.

“W-Whaturyudoin?” I stuttered.

I hadn’t seen her move anywhere near that fast before. Shit was fucking creepy. The weird thing was, the fluid movement had barely disturbed the water at all. A sweeping chill travelled the full length of my spine as she opened her eyes. They were glowing as brightly as the flora surrounding us. “Je crois que je suis en train de tomber amoureux de toi,” she breathed, the deadly, terrifying undertone in her voice making my skin crawl. Oh shit.

I gulped. “Felix. You’re fucking crazy.”

The unicorn blinked, shaking her head somewhat, before levelling me with an innocent look, her irises swiftly receding to their normal size.

“Okay. Seriously. You need to tell me why you keep spacing out. What’s with the glowing eyes? Why do you start speaking French? You know I don’t understand a word you’re saying, right?”

She blinked again, seemingly contemplating me for a few moments. I waited, even though my patience was slowly draining. “Are you going to drink that?” she finally asked.

“What?” I inquired, perplexed.

She threw a nod over my shoulder to the edge of one of the smaller pools, where a bottle of Jack Daniels was just sitting there, waiting for me. Score! “Fuck yes I am,” I muttered, grabbing the bottle and opening it.

I was just about to take a swig, when I clicked she’d just fucking played me. Quite easily, as well. “Hold on a second there, Atom Flank. You still haven’t told me-”

“Ugh. Fine,” she snapped, flicking her wet mane out of her face. Water droplets sprayed the entire length of the pool. “There’s something about me that you don’t know. Hardly anypony knows, in fact.”

I choked, halfway through a swig of whiskey. “You’re a dude?”

Her eyes rolled. “You’ve seen my vagina before, on several occasions,” she deadpanned.

“Sorry,” I snickered, taking another swig of Jack. The first stirrings of intoxication washed through my senses. I grinned. All was well.

“You need to take this seriously, Jack,” she implored, resting her forehooves over my shoulders and giving me a mock stern look.

I immediately wrapped my arms around her, without even thinking, and pulled her to my chest. Never had I felt so content. I had the beginnings of a nice buzz, and I had the prettiest unicorn in Equestria draped over me like a fine silk. She fit against me perfectly. “I’m listening.”

“I…” she began, the breath catching in her throat. I felt her shiver against me, despite the water being toasty warm. Putting the bottle of booze down on the ledge, I snaked my arms more securely around her and waited for her to continue. “I… want to tell you, but…” she trailed off, her ears hanging limply against her mane and one of her forehooves tracing little circles on my shoulder.

“Felix, it doesn’t matter what it is. I’m not going to think any different of you,” I whispered, bringing a hand up to her cheek.

She nuzzled my palm, her eyes closing for the briefest of moments. “Okay… I’m… I’m a siren,” she whispered. It was subtle, but I caught a little uncharacteristic wobble in her voice.

“Oh,” I said, unsure of how to react.

She blinked, looking at me quizzically. “You don’t know what a siren is, do you?”

“Not even a little,” I replied with a grin.

She let out a sigh, her pretty eyes regarding me for a moment. “Sirens are an ancient all-female race. We emerged from the oceans many millennia ago-”

“Wait—all female?” I interrupted. “How does that work?”

“Well, we can only have daughters. There has never been a male siren, nor will there ever be. Not much genetic information is taken from the father’s side during conception, so the offspring always takes the form of a female unicorn, regardless of what species the father is,” she softly explained, her eyes observing me intently.

I almost stopped breathing. Something sparked to life in both my chest and my mind that set my thoughts running a mile a minute. “Wait… So, does that mean…” I trailed off, staring deeply into her pretty blue eyes.

I felt a little shiver flow through her, and she clung to me just a little bit tighter. “Honestly, I don’t know. But, Jack—you need to know the full story before you start asking questions like that. Sirens… well, we’re kinda… bad news,” she muttered, her expression darkening.

Bad news? “What… What do you mean?” I urged.

“There’s a reason I don’t tell ponies I’m a siren. Ponies hate sirens.”

I frowned. “Why?”

Taking a hoof from my shoulder, she brought it to the pendant embedded into her choker collar. It glinted menacingly in the semi-darkness. “You see this? Every siren has one of these. It’s what we use to… feed on ponies’ emotions… when we sing,” she added, her voice breaking on the last word.

I frowned, trying to figure out why she looked so damned ashamed of herself. “Feed on emotions?” I had thought the sapphire was just that—a sapphire, albeit one she was particularly fond of. I would never have guessed it had an actual function—and such a nefarious one at that.

“You remember when I sang at the nightclub? How everypony couldn’t take their eyes off me?”

“Well, I was pretty wasted. Can’t really remember much-”

Felix held me at hooves length. “How badly did you want me that night, Jack?”

I dug through my recollections. It wasn’t all that difficult, truth be told. I had wanted her a whole damn lot that night, but to blame it on her singing would be downright dishonest. I wanted her all the time, every second of every hour of every fucking day. If what she was saying was true, that she could garner people’s affections through singing, then I guess it had no effect on me. I was already smitten with her one hundred percent of the time.

Felix blinked, a solitary tear rolling down her cheek and splashing into the water. “Sirens feed off attention. If we don’t, we get sick, but nopony seems to care about that. They just don’t want to be brainwashed, and I get that. I really do-”

I cupped her cheeks in my palms, massaging the soft fur of her face with my thumbs. “If ever you’re feeling a little low, just remember—you can feed on me anytime you like.”

Felix smiled, leaning into my touch. “You’re so sweet,” she croaked.

I wiped away a stray tear from her cheek. “I mean, it’s not like you’re hurting anyone. What’s so bad about giving you a little adoration?”

Her smile faltered a bit. “Well, that’s where certain other aspects of being a siren come into play. To say I’m a siren is not technically the truth. Technically, it’s more like I’m… um, possessed by one,” she finished with a sheepish grin.

“Come again?” I muttered, blinking in disbelief.

“You remember my little stunt at the Wonderbolts aerial display?”

“Yeah—I’m not forgetting that anytime soon.”

“That’s a siren’s true form. Or at least, it used to be.”

“That thing?” I stammered.

“As I said before—we evolved from seaponies. Every once in a while, I let her out to stretch her fins by way of ethereal projection. She prefers that form.”

Seaponies. Actually makes sense. “Wait, you’re talking about ‘her’ like ‘she’s’ a separate entity altogether. Back on Earth, people have been sectioned for less,” I muttered, incredulous.

“Yes, and that’s part of the reason ponies don’t like sirens. They think we’re nuts. Well, that and the oftentimes aggressive temperament, the fangs, and the glowing eyes,” she added, her tone becoming steadily more unbalanced as she spoke.

I laughed, incapable of any other reaction other than complete bewilderment. After everything she’d just told me, I was still besotted with her. “So, when the fangs come out, and your eyes glow blue—that’s her?”

She nuzzled the end of my nose with her muzzle, giving my hips a squeeze with her hind legs. “Yes.”

“Okay, and the French?”

“I think you must mean Prench. Equestrian—or English, as you call it—is my second language. My darker half just happens to take it less seriously than I do, considering we live in an Equestrian speaking country,” she added, with more than a little sass. The weird part was I could tell she was directing it at her siren.

“So… uh, what’s she like?” I asked, a little apprehensively. I had to admit, I was more than a little intrigued at the existence of this supposed “she demon”.

Felix gave me an amused grin. “My siren? Well…” She let out a tepid sigh. “In the interest of full disclosure, she’s… dark, moody, overly possessive—of you, I might add—and has a volatile capacity to become incredibly violent when provoked.”

“Oh…” I muttered. That thing with Cloudchaser was starting to make a lot more sense, not that the knowledge filled me with much confidence.

“But, hey—don’t take my word for it,” she went on, her tone overly sweet all of a sudden. The grin she gave me suggested she was about to do something incredibly stupid for such a smart pony.

I gripped her sides. “What’re you-no. No, Felix-”

Felix closed her eyes, her grin widening. “She’s been dying for some one on one time with you. I think you’re ready.” The sapphire in her collar began to glow, causing goosebumps to sprout over my arms and neck.

“No. No no no no—not ready!” I snapped, pointing a finger at her muzzle, the words spewing out of my face a mile a minute. “Felix, I don’t like it when she comes out! I was just curious, that’s all. I don’t want to see her, I mean—not yet, at least. She scares the fucking crap out of me-”

Felix opened her eyes, and I was damn near blinded by blue light. I panicked, completely freezing up and closing my eyes. I had no idea what the siren was going to do, especially now Felix wasn’t even trying to keep her in check.

The tinkling sound of magic filled the air, followed closely by music. My eyes sprang open at the unexpected reverie, and I frowned at the blue aura surrounding the unicorn’s horn. “But… Isn’t your magic…” I trailed off.

The mare briefly nuzzled my cheek, before pulling back, her sweet breath rushing over my lips. “Ne pas avoir peur, mon étalon,” she uttered. The light of her eyes had dimmed to a soft glow, along with the pendant at her neck. “Je ne pourrais jamais te blesser.”

Her words were lost on me, but their tone spoke volumes. The debilitating fear of having those fangs sink into my flesh, or being incinerated by a blast of volatile magic lessened somewhat. I found myself gazing into her eyes, and realising that the pupils, along with the irises, had completely vanished. All that was left was a swirling sea of blue light—a sea I quickly became mesmerised with. The currents seemed to flow in time with the music, eddies waltzing down to endless depths.

“I… can’t understand you,” I whispered, but it didn’t matter. I knew in that moment she wouldn’t hurt me. I would even go so far as to say I had just become the newest of only a few individuals that could be truly considered safe in her presence, untethered as she was.

With another swig of liquid courage, the last vestige of common sense swiftly abandoned me. If sirens were so bad, then why did they smell so good? Why did they feel so good? What… what would they taste like?

She was closer now. I’m not sure how, seeing as she was lying on top of me to begin with, but all I could see were those glowing eyes. Her breath, sweetly laden with powerful mind bending pheromones, washed over my lips, which decided to part of their own accord. Something wet suddenly brushed over the upper one. Wait. Was that? I pulled back slightly, just in time to see an honest to gods forked tongue slip back into her maw. At the same time, the muted sound of a twig snapping came from somewhere beyond the clearing.

Felix screamed, her eyes instantly blinding. The music came to an abrupt halt.

I threw an arm up to shield my eyes, the sudden influx of blue light pouring from hers nearly burning my retinas completely. The demonic duality of her voice never failed to set my skin crawling, and I almost choked on a lungful of water trying to get away from her. Crazy assed demon horse!

Surprisingly, the siren made no attempt to prevent me from frantically doggie paddling away, instead turning her spotlight gaze to the wall of vegetation surrounding the pools.

* * *

Griffon! Griffon!

Shut up. Let me think, for pony’s sake.

Tuer le griffon!

Felix could feel the blast coming. Fangs were out. Horn glowing that deadly shade of blue. Fuck. Jack was scrambling away from her, sending water flying everywhere. Why on Equador had she thought introducing him to the siren would be a good idea?

Le griffon doit mourir!

Several blue rings of energy encircled Felix’s horn at varying heights, and she gasped so forcefully she almost choked on her tongue. Not in pain, but in dumbfounded recognition of the incredibly stupid shit her darker half was trying to pull.

Don’t you bucking dare, you inconsiderate little harlot! There’s no way Jack will survive if you cast that!

Thankfully, the beast was sobered by this little detail enough that Felix was able to summon a strong enough mental bitch slap to lock her down. Releasing a drawn out breath, Her eyes delaminated, along with her horn, and the fangs receded.

Tuer le griffon!

Okay, dammit! The simplest of detection spells revealed the location of the intruder, who was indeed a griffin. Her claws were embedded into a nearby tree branch, and her big yellow eyes squinting through the vegetation. She was clearly under the impression she hadn’t yet been rumbled. Felix feigned ignorance of her position, though she kept her eyes peeled.

“F-Felix?” Jack murmured.

“It’s okay, Jack. I’m here,” she reassured, stealing subtle glances at the motionless griffin. The vegetation was too thick to get a clear view with eyesight alone, but the spell enabled Felix to see right through it.

Il y a un autre!

“What’s going on?” Jack muttered.

Felix held up a hoof, her eyes instinctively flashing over another tree hidden behind the vegetation, where another griffin lay in wait. How many in total?

Seulement deux. Tuez-les maintenant.

That’s your go-to response to nearly everything. Her horn charged, but not with the death blow her darker half desired.

CRACK.

Instantaneously ripped from their perches at the atomic level, the uninvited guests were violently reconstructed into two very confused griffins. They fell in a heap by the side of the hot springs, their grace and poise abandoning them in a fit of ruffled feathers and scattered limbs. One of them tried to flee, but her companion, even quicker to recover, grabbed her by the wings. “It’s too late for that. Sit down and shut up,” the captor squawked through gritted beak.

Felix knew that voice. If she was not mistaken, a vital member of Dysnomia’s high command had just wandered so willingly into her open hooves.

“Are… Are those… griffins?” Jack gasped, staring in awe at the two feathered warriors. The larger of them sported a very familiar dark tan coat, that gave way to a thick breast of equally familiar white feathers encompassing head and neck. Her eyes were the colour of a dragon’s fiercely guarded horde; gold. Dirty rotten gold. Being a griffin, her forelimbs were not hooved, but rather clawed—boasting long talons meant for slashing. Slashing and deception. Her rear limbs were of the pawed variety, not unlike the thieving nine-faced cats of the southern shithole Badlands.

The other griffin was an unknown. Younger, slightly smaller, with a vibrant red coat, and feathered wings and breast of the same colour. Her eyes were also gold, but darting in fear, as opposed to the calm and collected gaze of her superior.

“So…” Felix began, rising from the water. Her horn flashed, causing the droplets clinging to her coat to instantly evaporate into a small cloud of steam. “Do you have an ace under your tail, or are you really this stupid, Colonel Gilda?”

The bastard griffin clicked her beak, arrogant as always, keeping a tight hold on the younger buzzard visibly shaking by her side. “It’s a wonder you’re still a Lieutenant. I’d have thought you’d be a General by now, at the very least,” Gilda idly commented.

“Pushing paper doesn’t suit me, but of course—you know that already,” Felix coolly countered.

“Um… aren’t they the bad guys? Are we really just gonna sit here and have a chat with them?” Jack mumbled, slowly climbing out of the steaming pool with his whiskey bottle and stumbling toward the pile of discarded clothing.

“That depends how you define ‘bad’, Sweetie. Colonel Gilda here was a very bad griffin, a decade ago. In recent years, though, she has become somewhat… innocuous.”

That earned another click from Gilda’s beak, but the glare that followed was noticeably half-hearted. The expression gradually faded, morphing into a grimace that showed fatigue beyond her years. Felix was thrown somewhat, her facade breaking for the briefest of moments. This was not the Gilda she remembered. The Gilda she remembered wasn’t much of an actress.

“Tell me, are the theatrics for my benefit, or his?” Felix questioned, deftly stepping around the two griffins in a circle and motioning to Jack with her horn. The human scowled, attempting to clothe his dripping wet body. Felix’s eyes lingered on him a shade longer than they probably should have, given the circumstances.

“You killed a lot of good griffins,” Gilda spat.

The young griffin cowering at Gilda’s side let out a muffled squawk, her eyes transfixed on Felix’s horn. The siren purred in delight, reminiscing in the abhorrent slaughter of those dark years. Felix turned her muzzle in disgust. The memories of the bloodshed caused her to wish her darker half could be cursed away.

“Wait… wut?” Jack interjected, his wrinkled uniform damp in places and haphazardly fastened.

“I’m a siren, Jack,” Felix reiterated, keeping her eyes fixed on Gilda. The griffin had known for a while now, that much was obvious. “Sirens are evil, remember?”

A brief silence gripped the clearing, during which Felix wanted nothing more than to look at her human coltfriend. She realised in that moment that’s what he was, now she had willingly shared with him her darkest secret. It was a damned shame that two griffins had come to fuck up the joyous afterglow of such an epiphany.

“Why did you come here?” Felix growled, her horn sparking little pink streaks of fire that left scorch marks on the surrounding rocks. The magical appendage was a hair trigger away from turning the two of them into piles of ash, but that would solve nothing.

The younger griffin squawked even louder this time, hiding her face in her claws and flattening her frame to the forest floor. Even Gilda recoiled a little. “The king wants you dead. He wants your alien friend over there dead as well,” she gruffly admitted.

Jack frowned, his eyes darting between Felix and the griffins as though he wasn’t sure if they were being serious or not.

“Grognak’s scared of the ship, then.” Figures. The griffin king always had a problem with things he couldn’t understand, especially when it involved technology that was foreign to him.

Gilda gave a solemn nod, her claws digging into the ruffled mane of her companion.

“Who do you have on the inside?” Felix countered. There was no way Grognak could know who was capable of flying the jet without solid intel.

“I’ll tell you, I promise, but I want you to hear me out.”

“I’m not interested in your web of deception, Gilda-”

“You know I didn’t come here to try and kill you. I’m not that deluded,” she interrupted, briefly digging her claws into her beak. “He doesn’t have the support he used to. If someone can get close enough without him blasting them with that damned staff-”

Felix rolled her eyes. “Who’d have thought that the great and illustrious Colonel Gilda of Griffinstone would be considering treason against his imperial highness?” she mocked, taunting the griffin. “Oh wait, that’s right—nopony.”

Gilda gripped the mane of her cowering companion, wrenching her up to a reluctant sitting position. The younger griffin screeched in protest, attempting to hide behind her wings as though Felix’s gaze alone would burn her. “Look at her! Even this terrified little cub of a soldier was desperate enough to try and end him. It’s a wonder she still has her life.”

“Isn’t it just?” Felix grinned.

Gilda squawked her frustration. “You are so stubborn.”

Felix raised an eyebrow. “You really expect me to take you seriously?”

Gilda scowled, letting the younger griffin fall back to the ground, where she curled up into a ball of feathers and shame. The Colonel, however, took a defiant step forward, lowering her voice and narrowing her eyes. “If anyone has a chance at getting rid of him, it’s you. Take out the King, and diplomacy will prevail. Isn’t that what you ponies want?”

Felix smiled. If only it was that simple. “Of course. The problem is that it’s not what ‘you griffins’ want.”

Gilda clicked her beak. “It’s true that if you asked the average griffin whether or not they want to continue fighting a pointless war, they’d say yes—but it’s not like they have any choice in the matter when saying no gets them sent to a forced labour camp.”

Felix frowned, an uneasy feeling forming in the pit of her stomach. “That’s just a rumour,” she dismissed, flicking her mane from her eyes and mirroring Gilda’s imposing stance. Not much was known to ponykind about the inner workings of Dysnomia, but this particular ‘rumour’ often had ponies calling upon Celestia to invade the griffin nation on the grounds of liberation.

“Hold on a second—labour camps?” Jack chimed in, giving Gilda an incredulous look. “Who the fuck is this guy?”

“She’s lying, Jack,” Felix maintained. She had to be lying.

“I wish I was,” Gilda sighed, dejected, folding her wings to her sides.

A long silence followed, during which pony and griffin considered one another. Felix weighed up her options, none of which seemed all that appealing. There was no doubt in her mind that Gilda had allowed herself to be captured, and more than likely intended to rely on deception to get what she wanted. If she was telling the truth, however, and Grognak actually had a spy in the ranks, then Felix would need to find out whom it was.

Her horn flashed, instantly summoning a piece of parchment and a quill, which began scribbling a note:

Fleets, your old pal Gilda has popped in by the hot springs to say hi. She even brought a friend. Apparently, King Shithead was dumb enough to send them to kill me and Jack. LOL. Where do you want me to put them?

Felix. Mwah xxx

Another flash, and both the note and the quill vanished with a few wind chimes and a small pop. The silence it left behind could have been cut with a knife. Even the birds had stopped chirping. Much to Felix’s satisfaction, Gilda was scowling. One, two, three, four…

WHOOSH—THUD…

Fleetfoot slammed into the ground so forcefully that her hooves left fractures in the rock. She gave a loud nicker, looking positively menacing in her Wonderbolt flight suit. It was a well known fact that she hated her training being interrupted. The younger Griffin squawked at the violent entrance, before the sonic boom finally caught up, rendering her catatonic. Even Jack cursed loudly at the soul shattering blast, diving to the ground amidst the swaying trees and covering his ears. Felix shook her head. If Fleetfoot wasn’t a General, there’d be hell to pay for a stunt like that at such a late hour.

Gilda was quick to subdue her companion again, giving Fleetfoot a scowl. “You always did like to make an entran-”

“Shut it,” Fleetfoot snapped, trotting to Jack’s side, her eyes already scanning for injuries. “Did they hurt you?”

Jack blinked. It took him a few seconds to respond. “What? No, I’m fine,” he answered, with a somewhat puzzled expression.

Fleetfoot wasn’t buying it, apparently. Only when she had trotted around him a few times, her tail flicking in agitation, did she finally turn her attention back to the two griffins curiously observing her actions.

“I’m fine, too. Thanks so much for asking,” Felix remarked. Typical Fleetfoot. It was something of an old fashioned trait to mollycoddle stallions, and especially peculiar for a mare still in her twenties.

Fleetfoot snorted. “Please. No griffin is getting the drop on you.”

Jack scowled. “What? So I’m some kind of liability now?”

Instead of answering, like a normal pony might, Fleetfoot reared up on her hind legs, nickering out a war cry at him and flapping up a small gust that whipped leaves, twigs and other debris around the forest clearing.

“Okay, okay, damn! You feckin’ crazy horse!” Jack yelled, backpedalling a few paces and nearly tripping into the hot springs.

Her ridiculous point proven, she dropped back down to her forehooves and glared Gilda right in her golden eyes. “Start talking.”

Author's Note

So a "couple of days" turned into nearly two weeks. Yeah...

In other words, take my posting predictions with a pinch of salt. We all know I'm useless at timekeeping...

That said, I'm already 1k into the next chapter. Hopefully it won't be too long. :)