Author's Note

Yay! Another chapter done!

And no, I am not dead. School was just being the same: awful. But with the finals' week almost over (and one exam remaining for me), I hope I will be able to write more.

Also, consider this an early Christmas present. And, for Christmas, the best gift you, my readers, can give me is some feedback, either positive or negative. I will reply to every comments when I have the chance, but I will still reply.

Anyways, the introductory arc is almost done, maybe one or two chapters to go. As I am not someone who loves schedules (Twilight would kill me if she was real), I can't say when I will update this story. It may be soon like it may be in a few months... But I usually update quickly... when I have ideas...

In hopes you like this chapter, I will see you next chapter. BYE!

Oh! And one more thing. If any one of you feels like drawing art for the story, feel free to do so. Just send me a PM with a link to the art, and I might use said art as the cover, with the appropriate thanks to the artist.

Chapter first: A New Member

Night Crystal sat on her bed, a newspaper floating in front of her encased in a pale pink aura. The headline was what made her grab her father's newspaper, despite her being uninterested in the news.

Night Crystal was a young female Unicorn. Her hair, long enough to reach her thighs and a soft navy blue in colour, was done into a braid that had its source on her right temple, circling around above her forehead, just under her dark red horn, descending when it was above her left ear, then going down her back when it reached the middle of her neck.

Her eyes, a startling red, darted across the lines of the article advertised by the headline.

Soon, and despite herself, she began to read outloud what she was reading for the twenty-fifth time.

“'After the daring escape of prisoner Rick Razorwing, sentenced to death for murder, the Royal Council has issued a curfew. Anypony caught outside after the curfew will automatically be arrested and detained for a period of twenty-four hours during which --'”

Holding in a grunt of frustration, Crystal threw the newspaper as hard as she could against the wall. It it the wall with a muted 'thud', then fell on her pillow, between two of her plushies.

Taking a deep breath, she got up and went to look at herself in her mirror. Her red eyes stared at her reflection, going up and down.

Despite being nineteen years old, she small compared to the average Unicorn mare her age. She was barely five feet four inches tall, and her breasts could have been bigger than their current B cup size, if her mother was anything to go by.

With a sigh, she stopped focusing on her small breasts. Her skin was pale, almost white, but not sickly so. Her pale skin, according to her father, was adding to her beauty, although she doubted that.

She wore, almost everyday in fact, a dress the same shade of red as her horn that fell short of her knees. Embroidered on the left and right shoulders of the dress was a silver sword circled by two ribbons, one bright red, the other golden. She also had a silver necklace which she wore all the time with a silver pendant identical to the embroidery of her dress.

Crystal let out a sigh as her fingers closed around the familiar shape of the silver pendant around her neck.

Ever since her mother died, Crystal had been tense, mostly because of the reason why she had died.

A tear escaped Crystal's eye as she closed them, a memory she thought forgotten coming back to her, the pain of the memory washing over her.

***

The Guards in the living room had dark frowns upon their usually stoic faces. Night Crystal, twelve at the time, was peeking around a corner from the second story of the house, spying on her father and the Guards in the living room on the first story.

“Why exactly are Royal Guards here, in my house?” Night Crystal's father asked quietly, believing his daughter to be asleep.

The two Guards shifted around uncomfortably before looking at each other. Finally, after a long silence, one of them spoke.

“Well... Your wife was yet again out in the plaza, giving flyers to the passerby...”

Before he could continue, however, Night Crystal's father let out a rather loud sigh.

“I should have known...” he wispered.

“She was killed, sir,” the second Guard announced bluntly. He gulped before continuing. “While she was distributing her flyers, five stallions went to her. According to the numerous witnesses, she was stabbed repeatedly in the chest before her throat was slit open. According to the witnesses, one of the stallions said something about stopping her non-sensical speech about the Griffons.”

As soon as the Guard finished, his colleague gave him a hard slap on the back of the head, sending the helmet to the ground.

Night Crystal's father stared blankly at the two Guards before slowly shaking his head, muttring to himself about that being impossible.

As the news of her mother's death washed over her, young Crystal slowly began to cry. Softly and almost inaudibly at first, but soon, her sobs were loud enough to attract the attention of the two Guards and her father, whose eyes went wide in shock as he realised his daughter had heard everything.

Ignoring everything, young Crystal turned around and bolted to her room, locking herself in it and crying herself to sleep.

***

Crystal wiped the tears as she reopened her eyes. Ever since that day, she had vowed on her mother's grave that she would continue the fight for the rights of the Griffons.

So far, she had made no progress whatsoever.

Crystal let out a sigh as she slumped on her bed, her bare feet going up in the air as she did so. What didn't help was that her father was one of those who actually benefited from the almost-slavery of the Griffons, and that she was always linked to her father.

‘Maybe,’ she thought, ‘just maybe, I could convince Father of the wrongness of the ponies' acts towards the Griffons.’

She chuckled darkly at her thoughts.

“Like HE would even listen to me,” Crystal muttered darkly.

With a sigh, Crystal got up and made her way to her desk where a pair of white socks lay waiting to be put on. With a practiced gesture, she grabbed them and put them on, before opening her bedroom door and leaving.

***

After a half hour of walking from home to the plaza, and another half hour of speech on a soap box turned upside down, Crystal was beginning to feel tired. Not physically tired, but mentally.

Her speech was well rehearsed, and she knew it by heart. Her brain had almost little to do with actually saying it.

No. What was making Crystal tired was the ponies' reaction, one she was overly used to now.

With a sigh, she fell to her rump on the upturned soap box, making sure not to show anything private while doing so.

“What's the use?” she asked to herself. “No pony will ever listen to what I have to say.”

With yet another sigh, she got to her feet. As she turned around to gather the soap box, somepony cleared their throat.

Crystal's head shot up.

She gulped, knowing exactly what was going on.

She turned around, slowly.

As she finished turning around, her eyes fell on two Unicorn Guards wearing an iron armour.

‘Father's Guards' armour,’ she thought.

Crystal sighed. ‘I've been sighing a lot recently,’ she thought with a small chuckle.

Then, coming from behind the two Guards, Crystal's father's voice sounded. It was clearly pissed.

“What are you doing here, young lady?”

“Packing up.” Crystal couldn't help but sound snarky.

With a sigh, Crystal's father continued, ignoring his daughter's remark. “Nighty, listen. I--”

“Don't call me 'Nighty',” Crystal replied venomously.

“Fine. Crystal, I don't want to lose you like I lost your mother,” he said, holding a hand up to prevent his daughter from saying anything. “I know this is something you hold dear, but please have some common sense! Ponies don't like to be called 'wrong', and you know that. You more that anypony should know.”

Tears were forming in Crystal's eyes, slowly rolling down her cheeks. “Don't bring Mom into this! If you would have simply listened to her, nothing of... that... would have ever happened!” Crystal's words were heavy with barely concealed sobs.

Crystal's father snapped. “SHE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER THAN TO GO AND TRY TO REEL PONIES IN HER STUPID PLOT TO FREE THE GRIFFONS!”

It was Crystal's turn to snap.“DON'T CALL MOTHER STUPID! YOU'RE THE STUPID ONE FOR NOT PROTECTING HER WHEN SHE NEEDED IT THE MOST! YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN BY HER SIDE AT ALL TIMES!” By then, Crystal's tears were flowing freely, falling from her cheeks and nose down to the pavement beneath.

Crystal, in blurry moment of pure anger towards her father, turned away from him and his Guards, and she dashed down the roads as fast as she could.

Coming from behind her, she could hear the pants and grunts of the two Guards trying their best to follow her.

She quickened her pace to try and outrun the Guards.

Barely seeing anything through her tear-filled eyes, she turned left and right every once and a while, all in an attempt to outrun the Guards.

She may not have been an athlete, but Crystal was, thanks to her nimble body, quite fast when it came to running.

Barely out of breath, she turned into an alleyway, but she had to stop, the alleyway being a dead end.

She let out a frustrated and angry scream, her tears still falling to the ground.

She put her back to one of the buildings around her, and she let herself slide to the ground, her sobbing starting all over again.

She had been there, a crying and sobbing mess, for what she thought were hours, the sun's light barely reaching her and giving the sky a golden hue.

A sound, similar to the sound of wings, caught her attention.

She kept her head low, gaze directed towards the cobblestone pavement beneath her, convinced she had been found by one of her father's Guards, and she was about to be brought home.

She was lifted from the ground, a small squeak leaving Crystal's lips as she was swung unceremoniously over somepony's shoulder.

The stranger opened their wings, and with a powerful flap, left the ground behind. Crystal, in an instictual response, closed her eyes, clung tightly to whoever had taken her, and let out a overly girly squeak.

***

They had flown for hours. The sun had set, and the sky was now filled with stars.

Crystal felt a sudden jolt as her foalnapper, she decided, landed. She was then half-thrown, half-dropped to the "ground", her rump making the landing all the more painful.

“There. I think we are far enough from them,” a mysterious voice, a little rough and clearly male, said.

Crystal stayed silent, tears still falling from her eyes as she thought about the fight with her father.

A strong hand then met her shoulder, causing her to shiver slightly.

“Why,” she asked, “why did you foalnap me?” She was still sobbing slightly.

As she spoke, Crystal turned her tear-filled eyes towards her foalnapper.

Her skipped a beat as she saw who exactly had foalnapped her.

‘Rick Razorwing!’ She thought, her heart hammering against her chest.

In the moonlight, the bare torso, bare feet body of Rick seemed almost surreal to Crystal. She didn't want to admit it, but she had been fantasizing about him for quite a while now.

As she stared at the muscular, god-like body of Rick, Crystal felt her cheeks heat up. She quickly turned her head away from him, but he already had seen her blush.

“Like what you're seein'?” he asked with a chuckle.

Crystal quickly nodded, her blush deepening.

“Anyway,” Rick continued, “joking aside, I took you to make you an offer.”

Crystal looked back at Rick, a small, goofy smile across her features.

“I am aware of your... activities... regarding Griffons,” Rick continued. “So, I am here to ask you if you'd like to be part of a Revolution to give Griffons their rights back.”

Without waiting to be prompted by Rick, Crystal answered.

“YES!”

“Thank you, Night Crystal, in the name of all Griffons,” Rick said with a little bow.

Crystal was on her little cloud of happiness and she failed to notice Rick's uncertain glance.

“However, you will have to leave everything behind, including your father,” Rick said. Then, with a chuckle, he added, “Nighty.”

That got Crystal to her feet, her anger back with reinforcements.

“I DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT JERK! AND STOP CALLING ME NIGHTY!”

Rick's chuckle turned into full-blown laughter with Crystal's outburst. Crystal pounded on Rick's chest, trying to make him stop laughing, all the while the stars peacefully shone above, oblivious to everything happening below.